Emma Condliffe

a London-based artist's website

About

My paintings explore the relationship between the photographic and the painted image. These portraits do not aim to mimic the photograph, but instead have a raw-ness and an honesty about them, wanting each brush stroke to be as evident as the compete picture, contrasting with realist painters, whose painting aims to represent the photograph as precisely as possible.
I use photography as the starting point to capture the image. The images that interest me are the ones that capture a moment in time or a fleeting expression, the very soul of humanity; something that would be lost with the subject in front of you. In translating the image from photograph to painting, the image is examined and deconstructed into abstract brush strokes and layers of colour, yet maintaining a representational quality and not losing the original narrative.