Jude Pittman
ARTIST'S STATEMENT 2022
The painter Alice Neel said, "You know its's very hard to maintain a theory in the face of life that comes crashing about you."
Theories, algorithms, artificial intelligence (AI.) Computer (or AI) generated human faces are complex mathematical figures that are now available on hundreds of websites. Fraudulent identities have become commodities used to spread information and to sell products. These sites propose that "this person does not exist." It's hard to know what is real and what is not. It's fascinating to scrutinize these faces, especially if you are an artist who paints faces. But on closer look, there is no there, there.
In contrast, each of my invented faces is less theory and more "life that comes crashing about you." They are generated or evoked by a human perception, an intuition. I return to the spoken words of Alice Neel: "Art is...an over reaction to life." What makes my images different from the computer generated ones, is the ART PART. The Art Part is the identification I feel with the face I've composed.
I come back to the feelings I experienced while making sixty-five faces: excitement, empathy, and even love. I feel empathy with
the faces without a name. I care about them. I remember that Facebook tagged them as real people. A question for our times is,
What is real? The human experience behind the art is real.
People ask me where my faces come from. Sometimes I begin with one of my existing oil or acrylic paintings, or charcoal drawings. Then I proceed to reinvent it. Sometimes I start with a previous portrait and run with it until it becomes something different.
One source image can birth five to ten others. Sometimes I add texture from my own photographs of clay sculpture or my own paintings' texture to an image. Then I evolve an image with some clay or paint texture. Texture interests me.
Theories, algorithms, artificial intelligence (AI.) Computer (or AI) generated human faces are complex mathematical figures that are now available on hundreds of websites. Fraudulent identities have become commodities used to spread information and to sell products. These sites propose that "this person does not exist." It's hard to know what is real and what is not. It's fascinating to scrutinize these faces, especially if you are an artist who paints faces. But on closer look, there is no there, there.
In contrast, each of my invented faces is less theory and more "life that comes crashing about you." They are generated or evoked by a human perception, an intuition. I return to the spoken words of Alice Neel: "Art is...an over reaction to life." What makes my images different from the computer generated ones, is the ART PART. The Art Part is the identification I feel with the face I've composed.
I come back to the feelings I experienced while making sixty-five faces: excitement, empathy, and even love. I feel empathy with
the faces without a name. I care about them. I remember that Facebook tagged them as real people. A question for our times is,
What is real? The human experience behind the art is real.
People ask me where my faces come from. Sometimes I begin with one of my existing oil or acrylic paintings, or charcoal drawings. Then I proceed to reinvent it. Sometimes I start with a previous portrait and run with it until it becomes something different.
One source image can birth five to ten others. Sometimes I add texture from my own photographs of clay sculpture or my own paintings' texture to an image. Then I evolve an image with some clay or paint texture. Texture interests me.
ARTIST’S STATEMENT 2021
I feel fortunate to be an artist with an inner dialogue, an inner life, who draws a lot. My artworks come from emotional responses to world events, to technology, to artwork I see, to personal experiences, to friends, to trees, to weather. The subject is always an individual person. I make art from a personal and emotional place. The ongoing digital series, IMAGINED AND REMEMBERED PORTRAITS, is my response to not being able to see or draw people from life due to the pandemic. I paint spontaneously with a finger on a small iPad, often while listening to news and movies. These images are then printed on metal or paper.
Oil paintings from 2020-21 include images of a woman and her dog, hopeful of a returning normality with friends gathering.
Also, 2019-2020 oil paintings began with images of "Burn Days" when we, in the Sierras, are allowed to burn the dead branches of trees that have succumbed to the brutal California drought.
Making a painting is a search for the unifying thread or flow through paint of the three dimensional image on a flat surface. In normal times I use images of people who I draw from life. So the "life force" of the painting is that of the individual who is the model. The physical “pose” of the figure generates the composition. An angle of an arm, a turning of a head, begins the rhythmic application of color. Once begun, the painting has a life of its own and can change quite a bit. The process of painting reveals the unified rhythm or flow of the piece and it is always new to me at its completion.
I also make mosaic murals as public art. When designing for a public piece, I most feel a connection to the community.
My view is looking out rather than in. Subjects are influenced by my investigation of the site, the location. I see and learn new
things and meet new people. It is an expansive experience.
