ART 223

Short Reflection on “Self-­‐portrait with Unfinished Drawing”

The artwork I chose was “Self-­‐portrait with Unfinished Drawing” by Charles Ritchie. The setting of the piece is artist’s suburban home, which artist has repeatedly explored for twenty-­‐five years. At first, the dimensions of this drawing are relatively small. Because of the size of the drawing, one has to come closer to observe the detail of it. Therefore, as explained in artist’ statement, a very private experience is created when the viewer comes close and experiences the drawing alone. If one comes closer to the drawing, then he or she can notice the level of richness of detail presents in the drawing.

Observed from this drawing, I noticed artist’s interest in establishing contrast between lightness and darkness. Particularly in this drawing, light space occupied foreground and dark space occupied background. It is an interesting fact that the foreground of this drawing is less rendered whereas the background was full of detail such as the gestures of trees, road conditions and the detail of the small bridge in yard. Despite the interior and exterior of the house are well defined by the contrast of lightness and darkness, one can still sense the connection between interior space and exterior space from the reflections