Traditionally, the artist chooses one medium or style of work and works in it until the end of his days. So the distinctive feature of Graham Little is the softness of tone and miniature portrait. It seems that people descended from icons and have adapted to the modern world. The materials used by the artist themselves imply scrupulousness and detail.
© Graham Little, Untitled (Office) (2013) Coloured pencil and gouache on paper 42.3 x 32.3 cm, [Drawing] At: https://wsimag.com/alison-jacques-gallery/artworks/58293 (Accessed on 11.07.19)
Not so much different, and Elizabeth Peyton. For example, in the work of Daniel (1999), the artist uses watercolour, which, although gives arbitrary smudges on the image, still softness and restraint in the work dictated by the material.
In contrast, the work of Wilhelm Sasnal. Working with oil, he summarizes the form and highlights the main object - the face. Clear, but sometimes soft lines and shapes, in my opinion, convey the game of internal and external.
Wilhelm Sasnal (2002) Portrait of Rodchenko, Lady, Oil on Canvas, 30 x 30cm [Painting] At: https://www.saatchigallery.com/artists/artpages/sasnal_portrait_of_rodchenko_lady.htm (Accessed on 11.07.19)
Francis Bacon (1952) Study for a Portrait, Oil paint and sand on canvas, 661 x 561 x 18 mm [Painting] At: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/bacon-study-for-a-portrait-t12616 (Accessed on 11.07.19)
Dynamics, strength and effect appear in Francis Bacon works. Working on raw canvas by adding sand to oil, the artist created exciting and ambiguous images in portraits. Inspired by Eisenstein and his work with a close plan and frame setting, Bacon recreates such dynamics and tension in the picture.
Installation view, “Richard Prince: New Portraits” (2014), Gagosian Gallery, New York (© Richard Prince. Courtesy Gagosian Gallery. Photography by Robert McKeever) [Installation] At: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/bacon-study-for-a-portrait-t12616 (Accessed on 11.07.19)
And then I jumped again over a few decades, skipping many ideas in the field of how to depict a portrait, and find myself in front of the images of Instagram. A series of portraits by Richard Prince primitive and "head-on". If you wondered how it was done? Undoubtedly, everything is very simple and without much technical participation. Prince does not draw portraits as Graham Little does, but he asks a question and stirs the mind, in my opinion more than Little.
Here it seems to me that needed to ask a question to the artist himself, if the task is to create lovely and decorative image, then we can pay attention to materiality and do it in a old fashion way. If the artist’s task in posing a philosophical question and finding an answer to it, then the language of the image should correspond to the tendencies of the time. Not only the material of the creation of the work is important, but the method itself, let the artist use oil on canvas, but the manner of the image, the type of lines or something else should be a new language.
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