CHIAROSCURO SERIES

The Modern Chiaroscuro series is something I began developing after a phase of exploring classical methods in art. What began as experiments with oil paints transferred into drawing, as I started to test the method of creating dramatic shadows in my picture, ‘Bedtime reading’. Classical art techniques flow through the pieces. For example, ‘Glowstick goblins’ uses the process of grounding in certain colours, in this case with a green monochromatic promarker ground that is then coloured over to get the glow. Overtime, the series moves away from more classic Zorn palettes into modern situations where darkness and bright contrasting lights are present, such as in ‘The Clubbers’, ‘Heat lamp’ and ‘Doomscrolling’ (because modern day portraits could hardly ignore this ubiquitous light source of modern life!). The series ends with a final piece, ‘Caravaggist’, acknowledging the roots of one of the original artists to use the method, and the artists who came after to continue the trend.