Roundism – 2016-07-29 (Sold)

Blocked by Facebook

Part of the bigger roundism series and reason why I got blocked by Facebook. It had serious issues with nude at that time. Since then its policy on nudity has changed after a couples of scandals that made the press. It is strange though that this one got blocked since my last drawing ‘Bettie Page – 22-07-16’ shows full frontal nudity. Surely this one one does not; not a single nipple or worse! By the time I reedited this art statement 5 years later, the rigid censure finally has softened a bit.

Too Much Negative Space

There is this problem that occurs once in a while. I wrote about it before in my art statement to my graphite pencil drawing ‘Nude 11-08-15’. When you have a beautiful motif such as this one, an artist sometimes copes with too much negative space. In this particular case the model inclusive streched arm and hand could be fit in a perfect square. Cut off a triangle and there you have a nude occupying approximately 40% of the paper sheet. That is very little for a dominant object without much contextual environment around it.

The Solution

Consequently I had to introduce visual elements that would communicate with the main motif. I came up with an idea to create circular patterns stemming from the shoulder blades. Similarly did I make some stemming from the fingers and let them run off paper. To improve the overall composition I made a big circular swing. It runs from her left side, downwards and up again from her wrist up. It serves as a reversed counterweight to the abovedescribed circular patters. The result is a suggested movement even though the nude sits perfectly still.  

Click here to read about the sale of this art work through saatchiart.com   

Click here for read about this drawing being featured in a Saatchi Special .

Click here to read about an unauthorized copy someone made of this drawing.

Technical Details

Graphite pencil drawing (Pentel 0.5 mm, 3B) on Canson Bristol paper (21 x 29.7 x 0.1 cm) – A4 format)

Artist: Corné Akkers