Minor Celebrity

This graphite pencil drawing ‘Sans Titre – 09-07-15 (Sold)’ depicts Sari Maritza, American actress and celebrity of the 1930s. My newest branch on the Sans Titre Series tree. It’s steadily growing now. Yesterday I made ‘Sans Titre – 08-07-15’ with Gloria Swanson in it. Of course you all heared about her for sure. Sari is less known though, I guess. Her movier carreer was short lived but that was her own choice I read. Best known for dancing a tango with Charlie Chaplin. That’s basically it. However,  to me pictures of her portrait were enchanting and so was the reference photo for this one. A side-view of her pretty face.

Focus on the Head

So there it was, a great photo from the 1930s to interpret. In darkness she stands, holding a cup of tea or coffee, I don’t know. That was not something I wanted to draw as well. Instead, I decided to focus on the head only. The wavy hair locks were attractive enough. A beauty in its own right, only enforced by her aloof facial expression. A walk in the park for me.

Intuitions Spawns Lurid Abstraction

Often we as artists don’t know how to start an artwork. Sheer play I guess, except for the fact that we let our skills meet this play. It’s also about letting your intuition drive you. Many times in the past I experienced a painting or drawing only starts to make sense after its completion. On Wikipedia I read her appearance in movies is described as ‘lurid’. I couldn’t have been more dead on machting this quality with my blocky approach. It’s very abstract. Perhaps the most abstracted one to date. Compared to the previous drawing planes I drew stayed very open. This openess counterbalances the harsh and straight structures. A lovely experiment! It is with a collector from Germany now.

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

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