Lucy Stickney

My work revolves around humans, more specifically kids closer to my age. I work with graphite, charcoal, crayons and oil pastels to create portraits of people. My goal is to portray younger people, mostly women, as beautiful by emphasizing their imperfections rather than avoiding them completely. When I go to art museums and look at art, I notice that there is an abundance of art that features beautiful women: women in graceful poses with perfect features that are meant to be pleasing to the eye. Instead of avoiding the imperfections that are always there, I am using them to redefine the idea of beauty. By pushing the colors in the skin, emphasizing blues and greens under the eyes and redness of the cheeks, I am turning something that people feel the need to cover up into something that is visually striking. Expressive mark-making gives the skin a rough texture, but also gives the face a new energy that is eye-catching. In my work I am trying to embrace these imperfections. Accepting the awkwardness gives the viewers a closer look at things kids hide from others. Capturing subjects in awkward moments of glee, despite being imperfect, is pleasing to see, and because of that, it is beautiful.