PORTRAIT AWARD MMXX

International Contemporary Art exhibition

 

"Portrait is expressing a person through his effigy. The portrait, therefore, dealing with the person, which is a fundamental unit of thought, feeling and action, is always a psychological portrait, otherwise the human figure is reduced to the rank of the representation of a bottle or a pair of eggs.”

 

(Renzo Chini)

 

 

Exact. A portrait, to assume great value and meaning, should never be just a simple representation of the physiognomy, but should go beyond the documentation and always show an interpretative look of the artist on the subject: it must represent the inner essence of the character, from the point view of the artist, because as Aristotle wrote "it is the aim of art to represent not the external aspect of things, but their inner meaning, for this reason, not the external figure and the detail constitute the true reality."

Portraiture painting or photography, use of black  and  white  or colors -­‐  depending on  how  much  you  want to focus the attention of the viewer on more or less emotionally charged traits, use of light that dramatizes        or sensitizes, inclination of the face, attitude of the  subject,  hand  and  body  position,  gestures  and  proxemics: all aspects that must transmit more than what is seen, be it a behavior, an emotion, a desire.           Set portrait, correlated with the subject or with his social position or role, portrait acted or narrated, with the subject who performs actions, be it whole, half-­‐length, head, profile, full-­‐face, dressed, naked, in feet, sitting, in company or alone. We want to see something of you in each of your creations. You have to feel involved, you have to feel inside what you are framing on the canvas or in a  viewfinder.  Let  us  excite,  question, amaze, understand, investigate.

 

 

"The most amusing surface on earth is for us that of the human face."

 

(Georg Lichtenberg)