Portrait of My Grandfather
Pencil on Paper
Undergraduate Thesis - Fine Arts - University of Guelph
When I was young, both my parents worked long hours during the week. Early every morning they would drop my sister and I off at my grandparent's and we would only go home late at night to go to bed. As I got older, I would go to school from my grandparent's house and return there afterwards. It's safe to say I spent more of my childhood at my grandparent's house than I did at my own, and that my grandparents had as much a hand at raising me as my parents did. I say this to provide context.
My Grandfather passed away when I was in my first year at university. It affected me deeply. I remember trying to draw portraits of him from old photographs but no matter how accurate the rendering, they all failed to capture his essence. I came to the realization that he was so much more than just an image in a photograph, and that no matter how faithfully I could reproduce his image, it would never capture what he meant to me. Most of the best work I did while at university came as a response to this epiphany. For the next few years I tried to find ways to visually capture what photos could not.
These drawings are the end result of that particular journey.
To be honest, I'm not sure how much to actually say about the individual drawings. Often, I have a tendency to over editorialize, and here I think I'd rather let the work mostly speak for itself. I have provided the above biographical information to add some context that may not be evident in the art itself. Hopefully that information helps to enrich your experience of the drawings.
The actual drawings are meant to be presented similar to how they are shown above, as a complete single piece. However, I have presented them individually below as a showcase. All drawings are done in graphite and in this presentation I have tried to preserve as faithfully as possible the subtleties of the shading. However, in particular with the tonal field drawings, I had to chose between enhancing the tonal range in order to reveal the texture or maintaining the spirit of the original drawings. In all cases I decided to sacrifice archival fidelity for what I hope to be a more accurate experience of what it would be like to see the work in person.
Thank you for visiting. Please enjoy.
- Daniel
