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Artistaday.com - Find new contemporary art, create your own gallery of art

Jeff Ramirez  Los Angeles, CA


* All images used with permission. Please do not distribute without first contacting the artist.


About Jeff


I have always felt like I was living between two worlds. In each, I was a different person, always hyperaware of my surroundings. Every gesture amounted to a self-conscious performance. In images, I felt improperly represented. I grew to disassociate with my own reflection in imagery and thus became skeptical of the images of others.

The series of small paintings are styled after paparazzi images and photographs commonly found on social networking sites. The voluminous production of such images allows for banality and loss of context. Rendered in a photorealistic style, these paintings receive a physical presence that gives weight to the images. They act as anti-portraits that reduce an experience to a singular expression of denial. The pose of the subject is a response to being identified and singled out by the creator for the benefit of the viewer.

In the large paintings, the same ideas have been extended to the more straightforward traditional full portrait. In this style, the images are more claustrophobic and confined and so are the subjects. They exist in spaces bound by limitations with no possibility of autonomy. In order to maintain the narrative constriction, the paintings required additional elements, surrealist textures and coverings still rendered in the photorealist style. These impositions of the creator generate tension while making a traditional format more open to interpretation. These subjects are trapped in a moment and are vulnerable to projection. They sit, isolated in pure emotion and expressions of grief, fear or angst.


Jeff appears in the following Top 10 lists


'Eye Contact'

'California'

'2010'

'#Instagram'


10 of 33 reactions displayed


"good web keep it up !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

"i like it! its very creative and lifelike...good job"

"He has a dark sense of humor and it kind of scares me. So, anyway, he is a great artist but should draw 'HAPPIER' drawings!!!"

"The artists commentary on his work is well expressed but the art itself does not capture the intended theme of the project. The portaits are boring and leaves the viewer thoughtless and confused."

"Very interesting. The covering of the face and the expresionlessness of the subject make me think... if the "free" United States of North America was predominately muslim perhaps, is this how women would be going around?"

"I personally appreciate how Ramirez seemingly intended for these pieces to be honest and direct so they're no question for the eyes, yet so untelling and mysterious for ones mind. It reminds me of how quickly human nature allows us to judge."

"very creative . @chance stockman - agree. well said"

"what would mona lisa say?"

"I like the play on anatomy"

"fascinating. intruding by adding that something on a whole full picture, which is not naked, but is when we add to it, a bandana, etc...nudity in fact, never thought of it, in scientific terms. it's all relative. addition and substraction of elements gyrate the picture. purely physical. thank you. i've learnt something today of a serious nature about nudity that never crossed my mind!"


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