Strain, acrylic
Robert Englehorn
Pacific Grove High School | Junior
I am Robert Englehorn, and the reason I created this piece is to express the stress and strain that the world experienced this past year. With this work, I want to create an expression that captures the chaos and uncertainty of our current national circumstances. As an artist, my goal is to be satisfied with every piece I create, which I often find very difficult. One instance of how I have solved this problem in the past happened when I took a finished piece and revised it.
In my current artistic expression, I enjoy using the abstract to make backgrounds for my figures. I also like to use surrealism to create pieces that break from the norm. In terms of technique, I do not like to limit myself to one medium, but some favorites would have to include colored pencil, graphite pencil and acrylic. In this specific piece, I used acrylic to create vibrant warm colors to contrast with the heavy black acrylic line that described the contour of the face. I believe this piece is a departure point into areas such as cultural themes and the places that humans can’t normally see.
This piece is an expression of stress and fatigue descending into madness. The facial expression conveys this strong emotion even without showing the rest of the face, due to the grittiness of the heavy lines that outline the facial features. The inspiration for this piece comes from my own emotions, feelings of being overwhelmed and the hopelessness of the state of our lives as they have deteriorated over the last year. I would like this piece to be a reminder to myself and others of the troubles we have gone through and how we overcame them.