Tag: visual narrative
Faye Johansen’s practice begins with attention to nature, to material, and to the quiet traces things leave behind. Working across watercolour, collage, and handmade journals, she builds surfaces that carry both process and place. At the centre of her work is a powerful series of one hundred charcoal portraits of Indigenous children, drawn onto discarded books layered with torn maps, music notation, and fragments of text. Each material holds meaning, speaking to displacement, memory, and loss, while charcoal allows the faces to remain both present and fragile. Alongside this, her journals…
Jessica Fisher creates intense, close-up portraits that eliminate distance, pulling viewers directly into the emotional core of the face. Her work explores memory, identity, and the subconscious through gestural brushwork and tightly framed compositions where the eyes become the focal point. Drawing from personal experiences of trauma and healing, painting became her language when words failed. Her Blasphemous Saints series shifts focus away from identity, using cloaked figures and gesture to express vulnerability and tension. Now working on larger scales, her paintings feel both intimate and confrontational at once. Each piece…
Themes in art are kind of like walking a tightrope over a pit of opinions. Tilt too much toward what everyone else expects, and suddenly your work doesn’t sound like you. Lean too far into your own thing, and people might scratch their heads, wondering what connects it all. That’s the daily juggling act every artist knows too well, how to follow a concept without letting it hijack your voice. It’s not just about looking good on a wall. Galleries, residencies, and even collectors all have invisible “expectations” baked into what…
1. Why You Don’t Need to Show Everything Let’s start with a truth that trips up so many artists: more is not always better. When you’re putting together a portfolio, the instinct is to throw in everything, thinking, “The more they see, the more impressed they’ll be.” But here’s the kicker, a bloated portfolio can overwhelm jurors and dilute your strongest work. Every piece should earn its spot, not just fill space. Think of your portfolio as a conversation with a friend. You wouldn’t talk non-stop without letting them digest your ideas,…
Your Portfolio Is More Than a Showcase A lot of artists think of a portfolio as simply a place to show their best pieces. That mindset, while understandable, misses a crucial opportunity. Your portfolio is more than a gallery of good work. It’s a story, a curated experience that tells viewers who you are, how you think, and what your artistic evolution looks like. When you stop seeing your portfolio as a brag board and start seeing it as a journey, the narrative flow becomes your best tool. Think about the…
Start With a Clean Slate If you’ve been an artist for any length of time, you probably have hundreds of works scattered across sketchbooks, folders, and hard drives. The temptation to cram everything you’ve ever made into your portfolio is real. But that urge can backfire quickly. Before you even begin selecting, take a deep breath and start with a clean slate. Literally. Open a new folder and only add pieces that you feel excited about today. Not yesterday. Not five years ago. Today. Doing this helps you break away from…