CYNTHIA KRESSE

A moment in the face is revealing. This simple premise guides my portraiture. These intimate portraits seek the humanism of each subject, inherently more than just features and expression.

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My hope is to portray them uniquely, as they have not previously seen themselves. 

The extreme close-up portraits are called “facial landscapes”. The technique I use with pastel is to layer waves of pigment onto the paper with my fingertips, in graduated shades and tints, until the features emerge.