My Art Portfolio

The following is a selection of art that I created over the last year. While I completed many other pieces, I believe that the works I’ve selected to share represent my journey as an artist. I’ve learned and practiced new technical skills which serve as building blocks for the expression of my creativity. I am passionate about architecture — a field where creativity and technical skills are united with the goal of producing something functional and beautiful.

My Way

66 x 60 inches

mixed media, finger painting

I created this oversized painting entirely with my fingers, no brushes, using only latex house paint. I did this figurative composition in steps by adopting the roles of different professionals one at a time: I started as Project Manager and sketched my composition. Then I came in as Hairdresser and painted everyone’s hair, then a Fashion Designer who designed their clothes; then a Shoemaker, by finger-painting shoes on brown paper bags and then gluing them in place, and finally as a Portraitist I added faces to each body. At the end I played Stage Designer who invented the blue-colored environment. I included myself for scale.

Grand Interior

53 x 57 inches

acrylic on canvas

I painted this opulent interior in the format of a large mural. My plan was to create the convincing sensation of its enormous size and the glowing atmosphere produced by a massive number of candles. My technical goal was to construct this royal room without using a ruler; instead I established the perspective by means of strings and pushpins. I wanted this to be an expressionist, painterly piece not a colored draft. I am next to it to demonstrate the scale of my canvas.

Dreaming in Technicolor

9 x 12 inches

acrylic on canvas

In this work I was inspired by French Fauve painters. I am drawn to intense colors, so I decided to draw my composition in yellow, to explore how that beginning would affect the rest of the harmony. My intention was to let my colored pigments create a blast of energy and excitement from a reference with ordinary colors.

Ocean's Palette

16 x 20 inches

acrylic on canvas

This painting came out of a specific beginning: I had it started with the outlines in Magenta. I created the sparkle on the water by leaving raw canvas in those areas and contrasted that with the dark, heavy skies to emphasize the sunshine reflecting off the ripples.

Down by the Bay

9 x 12 inches

acrylic on canvas

My passion for French Fauvists is really reflected in this seascape. This was a gray scene, a dull cloudy day, with no contrast, not very inspiring, but I chose to paint it, because what did inspire me was the challenge to transform it! Often I observe color in reality through the eyes of Dufy, Derain, Vlaminck, and Matisse. It fascinates me that in painting, when I invent my own color palette the result gets believable if I allow my intuition to guide me.

In the Wee Small Hours

5 x 5 inches

watercolor and pen on paper

This is one of the quick daily studies in my sketchbook. I love working with pen and ink - when I can’t correct my mistakes and have to accept every happenstance. Watercolor is another such medium that gives me just one chance. Working with these materials has taught me how to extinguish perfectionism, have fun with the process, and go with the flow.

She Loves Me Not

12 x 9 inches

pastel on paper

It’s gone, all the petals have been picked away. No more of she loves me, she loves me not. She doesn’t love me.

This pastel drawing is created on a black substrate utilizing one single color: white. My approach was based on depicting a bouquet of nasturtiums by means of drawing only the negative shapes - the shapes of negative spaces around the flowers, so that the black outline appears as the aftermath of this process.

Retinal Imprint

12 x 17 inches

pastel on paper

I’ve learned that when I focus on the silhouette of something, it forces me to see the unity, “the big picture”. I coupled these two drawings because in both I challenged myself to see no details, but only the flat general shape of each bouquet. The drawings reminded me of those imprints that remain in the eye as negatives after looking at brightly lit objects.

Halfway

26 x 20 inches

charcoal on paper

I was inspired to do this charcoal study after viewing an art studio on a college tour. As a collector of interesting objects myself, I was captivated by what was a mountain of objects that had been assembled for the students’ final exercise. This particular fragment of the cluttered pile attracted me as subject-matter for its rhythm, texture, and the challenge of “uncluttering” it by means of conscious composing.

Thought Bubbles

12 x 9 inches

mixed media: charcoal and acrylic on paper

In this semi-abstracted portrait I played on words “thought bubbles”, implying the mind deep in thoughts. I was interested in the conceptual expression of a thinking process without the typical depiction of thought bubbles in comics.

Collector's Soul

(academic drawing)

12 x 9 inches

graphite on paper

These random items, found around the house, were chosen for their visual variety, and assembled into a still life according to the classic canons of academic drawing.

I spend several hours composing, drawing, shading, expressing the tonal differences, trying to depict its colors with graphite. Academic drawing calls for clarity, balance, and absence of attitude, so my initial challenge was to take it to realistic completion.

With time, the setup grew on me and I started feeling that each object had its own soul. I became more interested in expressing that. Then I noticed the space, the air between objects and under the table, and tried to emphasize that sensation of distance. Now, looking back at my process, I see how from academic my drawing turned more conceptual, which gave me my title.

Forgettable

7.5 x 5.5 inches

acrylic on cardboard box

I used an Amazon cardboard box to create this portrait, to utilize the unwanted object and turn it into a work of art. As an artist I am attracted to finding more sustainable ways with my materials that would inspire people to pay attention to what they discard. I intentionally omitted some of the facial features, because I was looking for a more abstract expression of the familiar. I wanted the viewer not to be able to immediately grasp the subject but discover it after a few seconds of observation.

Conversation

10 x 18.5 inches

graphite and coffee on paper

I made one piece with two trees to juxtapose their character. I was interested in showing how the same structure exists in a great number of forms. Pencil is one of my favorite tools to work with, but I wanted to add something unusual, so I used strongly brewed coffee for the background as if it was watercolor.

Soft Spoken

10 x 7 inches

pastel on paper

I used one of the Fayum faces from Ancient Egypt to create this portrait. Fayum tablets were made in encaustic, the medium that outlasted any other form of visual art. I achieved the smooth transitions of the shadows on the face by means of the most delicate medium of pastel, much more forgiving than beeswax.

Cluttered Minds

50 x 40 inches each

mixed media on paper

My concept was to express what can be on one’s mind. If you look closely, you’ll see the hair is made of random household items. I created these portraits in steps. I first glued together 4 sheets of varying shades of tonal paper. Using a brush on white paper, from observation, I created 60 sketches of random objects from around the house, 30 sec. per item: a light bulb, bouquet, dog, chair, clock, bananas, teddybear, etc. I cut these sketches out and glued them into the “hair styles.” The details for the faces and torsos were drawn using charcoal. Finally, I added the backgrounds around the figures as negative shapes, keeping the initial colors of paper intact on the figures and face. The minimal rendering of the figures allowed me to guide the viewer’s eye toward the “clutter of the mind.”

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