Faces by Patrick Greenwell from Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA.

From the Brush of Artist - I have a home and studio in the desert just outside of Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA. As a recent transplant to this part of the country, I have noticed that the desert, with its winds and harsh conditions, tends to strip away the excess. I have come to believe this environment has had a similar effect on my art. 

For the last few years, I have been concentrating mainly on the face. I rarely work from a model, so the faces I draw and paint come to me from dreams, memories, and quite often intuition. Their expressions and my mark making generally raise a question, first with me, but also for the viewer. Words like sadness, loneliness, and beauty are often associated with them, but that is not always the motivation for their creation. Sometimes for me, the process takes over and I view them more as abstractions, with the emotion merely a byproduct. 

But at other times when I'm working someone familiar surfaces in the work. Hanging there about the eyes or in the shape of the mouth will be my mother, or a friend, or a long ago lover. And with the next brushstroke or smudge of the charcoal they are gone. I guess all that has come before plays into the creation of these faces. I like to think they are compilations of the years unfolding into a visual language. A language that is personal, for sure, but also hopefully universal.There are few things more gratifying than to have a viewer see something in your work that never even occurred to you. For a viewer to have an emotional connection means the art has reached that universality. And that is the reason for all art, connection.

For more of Patrick Greenwell Check this link of his Instagram account:- https://www.instagram.com/patrickspirit/ or his website http://www.patgreenwellartist.com/

All Images are copyright by: Patrick Greenwell