60” x 40” Oil and Graphite on Canvas 2021
“Analog:
Working with charcoal is a throwback to an analog age. It is a journey to the beginning of recorded history/herstory. Cave humans invented fire and used the charcoal stick to paint themselves and the rocks around them. I have made campfires with my kids and done the very same thing.
Charcoal is a tenderly tactile medium. One that you role around in your fingers, making marks ranging from ghostly smudges to crisp lines to dark sections of pulsating energy. Each mark is a story that the artist is intimately connected with. Touch is a powerful sensation and removing the brush in order to apply the charcoal with my fingers, directly to the canvas, is almost primal. The black residue that gathers under my fingernails and imprints my whorls is the reminder of the story I am working so diligently to tell.
I love the herstorical feel of a charcoal portrait. It has the nuance of paint, yet the absence of color creates a vulnerability and intimacy. All noise is removed, leaving the viewer alone with the subject to ponder a life lived.”
~Shana Wilson
60” x 40” Oil and Graphite on Canvas 2021
“Analog:
Working with charcoal is a throwback to an analog age. It is a journey to the beginning of recorded history/herstory. Cave humans invented fire and used the charcoal stick to paint themselves and the rocks around them. I have made campfires with my kids and done the very same thing.
Charcoal is a tenderly tactile medium. One that you role around in your fingers, making marks ranging from ghostly smudges to crisp lines to dark sections of pulsating energy. Each mark is a story that the artist is intimately connected with. Touch is a powerful sensation and removing the brush in order to apply the charcoal with my fingers, directly to the canvas, is almost primal. The black residue that gathers under my fingernails and imprints my whorls is the reminder of the story I am working so diligently to tell.
I love the herstorical feel of a charcoal portrait. It has the nuance of paint, yet the absence of color creates a vulnerability and intimacy. All noise is removed, leaving the viewer alone with the subject to ponder a life lived.”
~Shana Wilson
