Sans Titre – 2015-07-09 (Sari Maritza) (Sold)

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.

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