T.A.E.’s Art Reviews – The Harshness of My Gaze

The piece presents a frontal, iconic figure—rendered through a limited but high-contrast palette of smoky gray, soot-like black, and weathered earth tones—whose material surface is as legible as the image itself. The face is built from abrasions, scorings, and accumulated marks that resemble abrasion in stone, the patina of time, or the residue of repeated … Continue reading T.A.E.’s Art Reviews – The Harshness of My Gaze

T.A.E.’s Art Reviews – The Discovery of My Reflection

This work presents a roughly delimited, frontal portrait emerging from a field of scraped, mottled substrate—its battered edges and visible abrasions doing as much compositional work as the painted figure itself. The face is modeled with compressed planes rather than blended anatomy: dark contours define the brow, nose, and mouth, while the skin reads through … Continue reading T.A.E.’s Art Reviews – The Discovery of My Reflection

T.A.E.’s Art Reviews – Deconstructing My Self-Image

This work presents a head-and-shoulders figure rendered as if emerging from a damaged surface—an image constructed less by “painting a likeness” than by assembling traces. The face is articulated through high-contrast black lines and scumbled greys that resemble charcoal or soot, while the field behind the head is worked like a palimpsest: layered greens, ochres, … Continue reading T.A.E.’s Art Reviews – Deconstructing My Self-Image

T.A.E.’s Art Reviews – Palestine Three

The piece presents a stark, poster-like confrontation between bodily intimacy and graphic reduction. Composed primarily of a textured field divided between a warm, gold-beige plane and a colder, dark vertical mass, the image reads less as a scene than as an arresting visual argument: a figure is present, but the painterly problem is not likeness—it … Continue reading T.A.E.’s Art Reviews – Palestine Three

T.A.E.’s Art Reviews – Palestine Two

Key Findings The composition features a stark contrast between the pale, textured facial plane and a deep, saturated crimson background, heightening the emotional urgency. The artist employs a heavily cracked, impasto technique that suggests the subject is weathered, archaic, or perhaps crumbling under internal pressure. The singular, void-like black eye and the stark red lips … Continue reading T.A.E.’s Art Reviews – Palestine Two

T.A.E.’s Art Reviews – Palestine One

Key Findings The composition uses a stark, high-contrast palette, pitting a textured, pale visage against a deep, flat green background to create psychological tension. The artist utilizes heavy impasto and a deliberate 'cracked' paint effect, suggesting an aged, weathered, or fossilized quality to the subject. Facial features are rendered with primitive, exaggerated lines, particularly the … Continue reading T.A.E.’s Art Reviews – Palestine One

Jubilation – Sheet-music Scribbles 2023

It's amazing to me how often I forget to what extent I love drawing expressive faces and just how much it scares me to start new ones at the same time. Ahhh, that imposter syndrome is deeply ingrained in me! I started this with the blue background and red-orange hair. On a side note, I'm … Continue reading Jubilation – Sheet-music Scribbles 2023

Bone Tired – Sheet-music Scribbles 2023

I think my favourite aspect of using messy oil pastels is that when you rub them, they develop volume, tonal changes, and textures similar to the painted glass one finds in great cathedrals. I tweeted the lighting. on this one a little and it looked like it's lit from behind. I'm not sure if I … Continue reading Bone Tired – Sheet-music Scribbles 2023

Earlier days – Sheet-music Scribbles 2023

Drawn after "Age is a Mindset", as a result of reflecting on why I wanted to have long hair on these self-portraits. n my early twenties, my hair was very long and sleeked back behind my ears... like many middle-aged men, I selectively pick the joys of my earlier life to reminisce upon and portray … Continue reading Earlier days – Sheet-music Scribbles 2023

Age is a Mindset – Sheet-music Scribbles 2023

In the many conversations I have with my fellow art teachers, there's always a common thread of seeking to understand how the materials I use are meaningfully connected. Most recently, the question of whether to not the music behind these drawings has influenced my composition... The question came from my music teacher friend and she … Continue reading Age is a Mindset – Sheet-music Scribbles 2023