To the Birds by Alessandro Tomassetti

To The Birds is my first painting of 2019. Aside from working with a model and props that were new to me, this painting pushed me to consider negative space as a way of heightening the impact of a composition more than I had in the past. Exploring the shapes that formed around the subject, as well as the ratio of subject to background, I reached a composition that felt balanced while being asymmetrical, and attractive while being somehow unsettling. Along with his intense gaze, the composition supports the feeling of having interrupted a private moment or ritual.