Beautiful Bizarre Art Prize Finalist

For the 3rd time my work was chosen to be one of the finalists for the 50 RAYMAR Traditional Art Award Finalists of the Beautiful Bizarre Art Prize! I feel so honored and humbled to be included in this group of crazy talented artists. The quality of the submitted art works has been consistently getting higher and the competition getting stiffer every year. That makes being selected even more special.

New drawing "Spring" ("Vanitas 32")

I just finished a new drawing entitled "Spring". It is actually a part of my Vanitas series and "Spring" is a sort of its subtitle. I used Mitsubishi Hi-Uni pencils for the most part except for the bottom 1/3 where you see a poppy in the black background. That was all Faber-Castell Pitt matt graphite pencils. So this drawing has 2 different surface finishes: gloss and matte.

The concept is that the textured background symbolizes a state of decay, erosion and the white poppy symbolizes peaceful death. But this flower also brings up an idea of new life/rebirth in spring. My model is suspended in between those 2 opposite ends of the spectrum, living in both of those dimensions simultaneously. She is affected by the decay of life but her body language and gaze express a sense of longing for spiritual rebirth.

This is my very first round drawing and I had a special frame custom made. I think the drawing looks good in this frame. This is going to be shown at Arcadia Contemporary in New York this summer for their Five And Under show.