close up female portrait blonde woman staring lips portraiture oil on canvas painting (RKH, 2022) Painting

close up female portrait blonde woman staring lips portraiture oil on canvas painting > About this painting 100x100cm oil on stretched canvas Model: Imke van der Spoel > About this series This painting is part of the "Early works" of RKH. This isn't really a series but more a grouped series of multiple paintings that were made before RKH started working in series. It consists of all kinds of works; portratis, close ups, black and whites, etc. > About my paintings My work is inspired by beautiful models from the fashion industry that I combine with inspiring interiors My favorite subject is the female face. Most portraits that I create are built of 5-7 layers of oil paint with a foundation of gesso mixed with chalk. This is a technique that i taught myself. Back in the days I was drawing and painting ever since I was little and taught myself to paint just like the old masters. I spent days recreating an reference image but when I was finished, I wasn’t satisfied at all. Why? Because it looked just like the photograph. It was too perfect, boring, and didn’t add anything to the experience compared to looking at the photograph. This needed to change and I started experimenting. In this process I learned to let go more and more. While still using the multilayer process like the old masters, I gave my own twist to it creating scratches, paint blobs, splatters, thick and thing brushstrokes. Not only did my painting process become more fun, my artworks also started to become more and more interesting. Most interesting of all is that my beautiful models still were as beautiful. Looking at them from a distance you still see a beautiful woman, but coming closer it gets more and more interesting, symbolizing real life as well. This is what I want to achieve with my paintings as well. I want to inspire the viewer to get closer to anything; people, nature, the world. You have a first impression of everything, but it gets more interesting when you dive a bit deeper. Get closer, appreciate the details and most of all appreciate and enjoy the full picture. Enjoy! > About the artist Born in 1989, RKH is a self-taught Dutch contemporary artist from Amsterdam. Her work is known for its striking female portraits, a subject that is inspired by her time studying the oil paintings of old masters. In her lifelong pursuit of art, Hercules developed her characteristic style that blends the old and the new; by drawing from the image of modern women today through Instagram models and the fashion industry, she joins these often contradictory depictions of women together, creating a timeless vignette of the modern woman.