Faceplay – Matted & Framed Poster

from $75.00
I wanted to make something bold and a little unsettling. Two faces staring straight ahead, built entirely from quilled paper strips layered tight against black backgrounds. No subtlety here. Just color and pattern and eyes that follow you. The left face is hot pink hair with three black claw marks raked across it, bright cyan eyes outlined in white, a red mouth, and a blue chin covered in white teardrops. It's expressive and graphic. The right face has lime green hair, the same cyan eyes with a yellow lid, and an orange chin. They're not identical, but they're clearly a pair. Between them is a thick green stripe that locks them together, like they're connected or confronting each other or maybe both. What I love about this piece is the texture. Every single surface is made of hundreds of tiny quilled coils arranged in tight rows. The hair looks like scales or feathers. The faces feel dimensional even though they're completely flat. The striped background behind them, done in gray and white, gives the whole thing a sense of motion, like these faces are vibrating or pushing forward. It took forever to quill, but that's the point. The labor becomes the texture becomes the mood. This is finished work that looks unfinished. It's portraits that don't pretend to be realistic. It's color as emotion, and emotion as something you can actually touch.
Size:
Frame Color:
I wanted to make something bold and a little unsettling. Two faces staring straight ahead, built entirely from quilled paper strips layered tight against black backgrounds. No subtlety here. Just color and pattern and eyes that follow you. The left face is hot pink hair with three black claw marks raked across it, bright cyan eyes outlined in white, a red mouth, and a blue chin covered in white teardrops. It's expressive and graphic. The right face has lime green hair, the same cyan eyes with a yellow lid, and an orange chin. They're not identical, but they're clearly a pair. Between them is a thick green stripe that locks them together, like they're connected or confronting each other or maybe both. What I love about this piece is the texture. Every single surface is made of hundreds of tiny quilled coils arranged in tight rows. The hair looks like scales or feathers. The faces feel dimensional even though they're completely flat. The striped background behind them, done in gray and white, gives the whole thing a sense of motion, like these faces are vibrating or pushing forward. It took forever to quill, but that's the point. The labor becomes the texture becomes the mood. This is finished work that looks unfinished. It's portraits that don't pretend to be realistic. It's color as emotion, and emotion as something you can actually touch.