Intimidation in Black and White
The flat surface is exhaustively covered in continuous black lines, which together, one on top of the other, develop the shapes and forms of a medusa-like figure. The depicted portrait appears to resemble, in fact, a mythological creature, surfacing and emerging from the paper as if it were three-dimensional. How curious it is to decipher a face and expression from simple black lines.
Its multiple characteristics widely intimidate its viewers, with its open mouth, wrinkled skin, and piercing eyes that meet with the observers’ in an instant. Furthermore, the curled locks, despite highly contrasting the image’s background – appearing simple and steady – fully reflect the other chaotic and dynamic characteristics represented. Can a still and flat image have such a powerful effect on its audience, even through a lack of colour? I’m not quite sure I can answer that, but what startles me mostly is the ability of an artist to create texture even in the absence of it. Although the image was printed on thin and fine newspaper, its texture still appears rough, uneven, and rocky, then again, causing and establishing its seemingly three-dimensional form.
