Paul Ruiz

I've had my eye on Paul Ruiz for awhile now. He's beautifully expressive with paint and very creative with color. Texture and color play roles in space and unity. He's based in Melbourne, just like Sophia Hewson and a few other artists that have caught my attention. Seems like Melbourne is doing well in the arts.

He has a very nice website showing a lot of his recent work and a blog which gives a lot of what's on his mind. And he updates them very often. 

Here's a nice close up of one of his paintings that he displayed on his website. He's very soft with his faces which brings out the paint textures in many places. 

It de-personalizes the subjects softening their faces. He reminds me a lot of Cezanne with how he depicts space through texture and color.

He makes such strikingly beautiful close ups.

http://emptyeasel.com/2009/02/11/paul-ruiz-portraits-in-paint/

Saltimbanque

The above link is an interview with Paul by Emptyeasel.com 

They make an interesting point that he's trying to conceal or reveal the emotional state of the subject. Sounds similar to what I've been trying to explore with veils in my own personal painting and drawings. 

Speaking of drawings, Paul's are very elegant--

He doesn't need to put every part of the figure in. The interviewer also discussed this at how "Paul’s subjects seem to be enveloped, concealed, or surrounded by the very medium which he uses to depict them..In Untitled Man, it’s not clear whether the partially visible figure is breaking free of his surroundings or being engulfed by them. . . and that’s probably as intended.

Either way the imagery is powerfully tragic: the figure’s face is bathed in golden light, but he appears unable to see it." 

He is creating his own veils just using paint and nothing else. He paints the face, then scratches away or adds more paint. 

untitled man