Kiki is a painting done by Chuck Close it is portrait of Kiki Smith; it was added to the walker’s collection in 1994 from the collections of Judy and Kenneth Dayton. Chuck close is know for his paintings and got his fame in the photo realist movement for a self-portrait done in 1967. I am actually a big fan of Chuck Close, even though my passion is photography it’s amazing to see that he can create a portrait of him self as good or even better then a camera could. And in many of his painting he is using a super realism to make it look like a photograph. Painting individual squares with abstract shapes and different colors makes up Kiki and a self-portrait of Close done in 2000. Close painted them this way because in 1988 he had a spinal blood clot, which left him a quadriplegic, unable to move either his legs or his arms. Because of this he dramatically changed his style of painting, from super realism to a more abstract type of work. Despite the disadvantage he might face I still think he is an amazing artist.
Viewing Kiki From different angles and distances the picture seems to move and change. This happens because of the way it’s painted. This painting allows the viewer to be involved as well, and it creates also most a game of sorts. You can stand up next to it and see a large abstract painting or go far back and see a large woman’s face. I think that the artists intention with this paint was to show a portrait in a new an exciting way. It creates a sense of chaos in what would be a normally mundane portrait. Yet the colors and shapes come to greater and form a greater whole. This painting different from other is the fact that by were you stand the whole design changes from abstract to realism.
My Experience with the kiki painting is that the closer and closer you get the more distorted the image get which might relate to a life experience that Chuck Close might have had with Kiki Smith. I think that the point of it was that if you look and see somebody from a distance versus close up, you cant see what they are made of or what they are all about as a person and individual.
http://artsconnected.org/resource/90830/13/kikihttp://www.artsconnected.org/artsnetmn/identity/close.html
Nice. I like that you took what could be seen as just a simple portrait or a cool technique and found a way to interpret it metaphorically as representing the aspects of an individual's personality or self as seen at a distance or up close. It's interesting that the closer you get the harder it is to see the person - does that suggest some kind of unknowability of another person, or futility in ever knowing everything?
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