Close-Up
Have you ever played the game of identifying everyday objects based on a close-up photograph of it? It’s hard, but super fun to play. This idea was used as a technique to make the ordinary unrecognizable or abstract. The artwork qualifies as a realistic abstract work because it does this very thing. What do you think it is? Some say it is an octopus, but others cannot see past the pattern. Could you guess it…it’s a tennis shoe! This is a realistic drawing based on an actual shoe using charcoal and white conté. We wear shoes everyday, but have trouble identifying this object in a close-up setting because our brains are programmed to search for faces and other recognizable shapes and patterns instead of extrapolating an object based on only a part of the picture. The human brain is a crazy and fascinating organ and close-up work offers a fun challenge to art pieces. Our brains work the same in an activity such as this, trying to classify what we see into the familiar to identify and make sense of the world. Our individuality, on the other hand, is what makes us interpret what we see differently, further defining each of us as a unique person.