Faces and Figures

Mixed media figurative art

New energy found in orange touches many facets of our lives and art – we expressed it in paintings of nature, in objects we created or enjoyed, in emotion- flooded abstract art.  The last chapter of the Project Orange are faces and figures, expressed, as always, in a variety of mediums. In orange, of course.

Our brains are wired to ‘read’ human faces (and, strangely enough, only when they appear right-side up).  We instantly recognize face features and their emotional cues – even when they are simplified and abstracted.

Take for example, emoji face symbols that are used universally to express emotions – sometimes more effectively than verbalization – despite their ‘minimalist’ nature.

Similarly, body posture, bending or leaning, arms extended or fingers intertwined, leaping or crouching, all powerful and universally recognized cues for person’s emotional state. 

This link between facial and body expressions with a sense of empathy is the essence of our interpersonal and societal interactions.  In dissociative mental states, the recognition of these cues by our brain is disrupted – person suffering from schizophrenia sometimes does not recognize tears as sadness or laughter as joy – the empathy misplaced or wanting, the whole of social interactions skewed.

Artistic representations of human faces or figures can vary widely in style, level of abstraction or context. Wide open to interpretation, this Chapter produced a surprising range of works – realistic to symbolic, contemplative to decorative, mostly mixed media dominated by drawing and painting. Persisting with the theme of the project, we are testing emotional readouts to these works – are they more uniform – given the human inclination to facial and figurative ’empathy’ – compared to noted dissonance in emotions evoked by abstract paintings?

Let’s explore our faces and figures and their emotional vocabulary. We will have a lot to analyze.