cubism

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Art

Personality Types Emerge Through Colorful, Fragmented Shapes in Jason Boyd Kinsella’s Portraits

In Anatomy of the Radiant Mind, Jason Boyd Kinsella considers what lies beneath the surface of our online identities and public-facing personas. The Canadian artist conjures a cast of characters, each based on distinct Myers-Brigg personality types to which he attributes unique colors, shapes, and sizes that comprise his figures. Working in what he describes as “fleshless portraiture,” Kinsella focuses on the intricacies of the human brain and emotional states, all conveyed through Cubist forms.

On view next month at Unit London, Anatomy of the Radiant Mind presents large-scale oil paintings and sculptures that, together, question dimension and depth. How can we understand one another when viewed through the flatness of social media? What do we lose when we’re not sharing a physical space? These questions surround the works, each of which is titled with the subtle anonymity of a single, given names like “Geordie” or “Lukas.”

To create the portraits, Kinsella begins with a preliminary structural sketch on paper and then translates his figures to canvas. He stacks three-dimensional triangles, cylinders, spheres, and blocks into facial features before applying vivid color. “Howard,” for example, exudes an aggrieved energy with a curved body in black and glowering expression, while “Kate” is dainty, her shapes stacked into a slim, pastel-hued tower.

Anatomy of the Radiant Mind runs from October 3 to November 4. Find more from the artist on Instagram.

 

Art

Architectural Silhouettes Play With Perspective in Patrick Akpojotor’s Fragmented Portraits

Combining a love for African masks and the people and buildings of his hometown of Lagos, Nigeria, Patrick Akpojotor (previously) merges the figurative details of faces, shoulders, and arms with the geometric forms of hallways, doors, and staircases. “My surface becomes a playground where forms, colours, perspective, and space comes to play and interact,” he says in a statement. “The use of geometry and architectural elements highlight the influence of the built environment in shaping our memories, experiences, and identities in the world.”

Akpojotor draws on the art historical legacies of Cubist painters who devised a way of breaking up the picture plane into “cubes” or fragments to show multiple sides of an object or figure at the same time. His compositions utilize skewed perspectives, contrast, and color to explore the dynamic relationship between internal and external human experiences, paralleling the interiors and exteriors of architectural spaces and the transformative ways we move between them. He has recently experimented with sculpture, producing steel forms of abstracted arches and steps.

Akpojotor is currently preparing work for a solo exhibition at Allouche Gallery in September. Find more of his work on his website and Instagram.

 

Art

Architecture and Bold Geometry Fragment Cubist Portraits by Patrick Akpojotor

In his architectural portraits, Patrick Akpojotor visualizes the exchange between humans and their built environments, whether real or imagined. The artist’s spatial body of work, which explicitly contemplates the relationship between interiority and exteriority, is founded in his childhood in Lagos, a city checkered with traditional, colonial, and contemporary structures where he still lives today. “I saw how a former residential area became a commercial one changing how people interacted with that community,” he says.

Rendered in bold blocks of acrylic, Akpojotor’s paintings encourage introspection as they consider how identities inform the design of single buildings and infrastructure, which in turn shape the people who occupy those spaces. The anthropomorphic structures evoke cubist geometry and illusion, fracturing the body with a staircase, brick chimney, or entire house, and some works shown here, including both “In Memory of the Living” pieces, are self-portraits.

Beyond his surroundings in Nigeria, Akpojotor derives inspiration from ancient African sculptures and masks, particularly “the way the forms are intentionally distorted to pass messages and symbols of their (beliefs),” he shares. “In my work, the way object(s) are placed does not matter. What is important is that the object(s) are represented, and the message is passed.”

Find a collection of Akpojotor’s paintings, drawings, and sculptures on his site, in addition to studio shots and glimpses at works-in-progress on Instagram. (via Juxtapoz)

 

Art

Picasso-Inspired Portrait Sculptures Rendered by Digital Artist Omar Aqil

Pakistan-based art director and illustrator Omar Aqil (previously) continues his Character Illustrations series with more collaged portraits made from stacks of 3D objects. Using digital software including Adobe Photoshop, Cinema 4D, Octane, and Adobe Illustrator, Aqil creates Picasso-esque faces and places them into random, casual scenes.

The shadows, highlights, and colors make Aqil’s rendered sculptures and plinths appear as built-objects in a physical location. Implied facial features give each character a personality that is helped by humorous expressions and mundane scenarios. “Making this series I have explored the new simplicity of shapes and forms to make a character’s inner expression which told the whole story,” Aqil writes on Behance. He adds the while the main sources of inspiration for the experimental project are Picasso’s portraits, the work also is inspired by random situations that he and other designers face.

To see more of Aqil’s portraits, check out the illustrator’s portfolio on Behance and follow him on Instagram.

Art

Life’s Sublime Moments Unearthed in Cubist Paintings by Connor Addison

Barcelona-based painter and photographer Connor Addison situates his recent series of oil paintings within the context of philosopher Edmund Burke’s theory of the sublime. That notion is based on the idea that “whatever is in any sort terrible or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime; that is, it is productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling.” Aptly titled Sublime Affliction, Addison’s works often feature one or two people lying or sitting still, their expressions conveyed by the shaded geometric shapes that form their fragmented faces and bodies. “Brother & Sally” even expresses the bond between species, portraying a man with his arm slung over a sleeping dog.

Employing muted reds and blues, the artist’s angular paintings explore the human emotions inspired by art, love, and relationships. “Sublimity comes from somewhere beyond, or deeper than immediate sensation—it cannot be literally visualized,” he says of the project. “Thus, figures in the Sublime Affliction series interact with mysterious overbearing entities, sources of sublime power, fear and anxiety.” To keep up with Addison affective pieces, follow him on Instagram. (via Booooooom)

 

Art Design

Picasso Portraits Reimagined as Glossy Digital Sculptures by Omar Aqil

For his series Character Illustrations, the art director and illustrator Omar Aqil (previously) uses Pablo Picasso’s painted portraits to inspire digital recreations. Aqil mirrors the artist’s Cubist style by collaging discrete metallic and glossy objects together in the shape of human or animals faces. The Pakistan-based digital artist also references specific works by Picasso in his ongoing series MIMIC, in which he creates futuristic garments and sculptures mixed with elements of interior design. You can see more of his digital musings inspired by famous painters and art historical movements on Instagram and Behance.