Light Space & Time Online Art Gallery is extremely pleased to announce that Paula Prentice has been named as the Gallery’s new featured artist and she will now be promoted by the gallery for the next 14 days in the gallery’s Artist Showcase.
Paula is an award-winning, self-taught pencil portrait artist based in Brisbane, Australia. Paula was selected as 1 of the top twelve finalists in the gallery’s 23rd Solo Art Exhibition Series. The placement in this competition qualified her art to be showcased in this feature.
Paula’s Artist Showcase feature will be promoted to over 350+ major news outlets, with inclusion on Google News & Bing News. In addition, the gallery will also be featuring and promoting her artwork in the gallery’s various social media networks for further exposure.
Below are Paula’s Artist Biography, Artist Statement and 5 images that were submitted to this competition.
Artist Biography
Paula Prentice is a self-taught pencil portrait artist based in Brisbane, Australia. She has been drawing almost daily since rediscovering her love of portraiture in 2018. Socially isolated by choice, Paula focuses mostly on self-portraits, exploring the effects of light and shadow in creating mood and narrative. Paula takes and edits her own photos to find the exact look, feel, and story she wants to portray in each drawing. The chiaroscuro quality she achieves evokes an emotional power and depth. Paula is strongly influenced by the work of graphite photorealistic artists such as Dirk Dzimirsky, Cath Riley, and Jessie Babin.
Believing that every portrait is a mirror, Paula's work goes beyond realistic likeness to an exploration of human nature. Her goal is for each drawing to represent an inner truth that is recognisable to the viewer, inviting connection and conversation.
Paula's work has been shown in many exhibitions online and in galleries around Brisbane. In 2020 she was awarded a Special Merit and a Special Recognition in Light Space& Time Online Art Gallery's online Spring/Summer "Created in Isolation" exhibition. In 2019 she received an Honourable Mention in Aspire Gallery's "Foot Square" competition in Brisbane. Her work has also been shown as a finalist at the Royal Queensland Art Society and Lethbridge Gallery in various exhibitions.
Artist Statement
Faces intrigue me. How do we "read" a face? How do we understand what a person is feeling when there are no words? What is the essence of an expression? Where does it lie? These are the questions that drive me to draw my own face over and over again, as if searching for some truth of identity or undefined inner state.
I believe that portraits are more than representations of character. I believe all portraits are mirrors. We look at a face and see ourselves somehow reflected there. That recognition creates a connection that goes beyond space and time.
For someone who is socially isolated by choice, creating this connection is the most powerful conversation I can have with the world, and the most truthful. It is an honesty that reveals and conceals, is both intimate and private, vulnerable and protected. My self-portraits are my way of communicating with the world and with myself. The process of creating them heals me. They also have the potential to heal my broken relationship with society and the world at large. For these reasons, my art is my therapy. I can see my growth and change. I am emerging, not just as an artist, but as a human being.
Online, Paula goes by the pseudonym of Paradoxis. Her work can be found on https://www.instagram.com/paradoxis50/ and https://paradoxisart.webador.com/.
Click the Thumbnail to See the Artwork in a Lightbox
