Chuck Close; Two Page Review

            Chuck Close is an artist that has over come a lot in his lifetime. He is a painter and a photographer that specializes in portraits of people or what is also known as photorealism. However, in most people’s eyes the most amazing thing he overcame was a seizure that was cause by a spinal artery collapsing.  After “the event” Close was able to finally move his arms a little but now relies on a wheelchair to move around. He has made a remarkable recovery and is able to paint to this day.

            Many people will think that how he paints is in a sense cheating; he takes pictures of people and lays out his image before he paints it, using the image instead of an actual model. His method before “the event” and after “the event” remained the same; the style is the only variation. Close takes a photograph and then prints it out. One the photograph he makes a grid that is exactly the same grid, only smaller, that is on a huge canvas. The way he does this is looking at each individual square in a grid he is able to replicate these squares into what then will become an amazing portrait. As stated before, the only thing that changed after “the event” was the style in which he painted.

Before “the event” he was able to copy in image or a photograph exactly as it appeared as a photograph into a massive size painting on a canvas.

The images seen above are examples of Close’s work before “the event”. On the left is a self-portrait and on the left is a painting called “Mark”. Both of these paintings, along with all of his paintings, are acrylic and/or oil paint on canvases.

            The paintings that Close did after “the event” were more unique in style. He did the process of taking a photograph and making a grid on both the photograph and the canvas to lay out the image properly and proportionally, but his style of painting was not perfectly representational. He did something along the lines of painting pixels so that each individual square that he gridded out looked like a bunch of circles. However, he knew what colors went together to make what he wanted so that his image would come out the way the photographed depicted it.  

 

The images seen above are the up-close images of what Close actually paints. These individual pixels will result into a full size portrait, as seen below a self-portrait of him today.

            Chuck Close is a very inspirational person for many people. He struggled as a child, losing his father at a young age and not being very bright in school. Where he also struggles today after overcoming “the event”. He is a fabulous artist and has never said that he could not do what he wanted. He is an inspiration for not only artists but for others who aspire to fulfill their dreams but have had many struggles in life.