Thursday, June 18, 2009

Art Blogging: Audrey Kawasaki

Audrey Kawasaki is an American painter. She was born and raised in Los Angeles by Japanese immigrant parents and studied at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. Her primary subject matter is women on wood panels, in fact, one particular theoretical woman:

All my pieces, all my girls, are a portrayal of his one particular being. They are all portraits of her. maybe physically different, but ultimately its she who i am conveying. I am addicted to her, she haunts me. She is my obsession. My love. My drive. My muse. My curse. My unattainable.

When I paint/draw, it’s like a desperate search for her. Painting is like digging. Sometimes I find her. Sometimes not. Though even if I do capture a glimpse of her, she’ll often immediately fade away. Never is she forever captured in my paintings, and that what makes it so interesting to me. It’s the hunt, the chase, that makes it so thrilling.

She is strongly influenced by manga and Art Nouveau painter Alphonse Mucha, as is quite evident in her both haunting and sensual work.

As I Fall, 2008.
If Only You Were Here, 2008.

Karamari, 2008.

2 comments:

bob said...

Looking at the pictures it almost looks like a srries of slightly modified self portraits. She seems to have that same airy quality.

John said...

Good observation. Is her search for this girl really a search for herself? Or narcicissm?