Description

Golden Silence is a figure painting I did from life in one sitting (alla prima). The model is actually a deaf woman.

I kept thinking about silence in this composition while she posed curled up nude. You cannot see the model’s face, nor her expression, so it feels that she is lost to us in her own silent world. Silence is golden.

I also added gold leaf to the background to bring out the warm fleshiness of her body offset by the cooler green shadows. The gold leaf reflects whatever colours are around it and in a way the painting becomes alive.

To view all figure painting archives, go to Figure Paintings.

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