this is work by nina friday.  shis is an artist, who is originally from st. petersburg, russia, and currently works from michigan.  i think her work is amazing.  the beautiful faces of her depressionesque characters are captivating.  she uses acrylic paint on wood panels, which i feel gives her work a distinct look.  most canvas’s are the same, but wood panels are all infinitely different from one another, so even if she wanted to reproduce the exact same piece, it would be impossible, because the medum would be different.

no matter the piece, i always seem to focus directly on the eyes of the subject.  the eyes seem to convey a beautifully innocent yet menacing soul.  from young to old, from rich to poor, from dracula to frankenstein, and from young brothers to beautiful debutantes, the story is in eyes.  the surroundings, to me, work well to shed light on why the eyes look the way they do.

the colors of each piece seem to help convey the emotions of the artist during the production of the piece.  as a musician this is how i tend to see art pieces.  i see them as visual stories, as i see music as audible stories.  i use key and tempo, amongst other tools, to convey my emotions as i’m writing, while still getting the story across through the lyrics.  but the lyrics on their own are strained to convey my emotions.  miss nina friday uses color masterfully to convey emotion, while still getting the story across through the actual subject.  when done correctly, as in nina’s case, the color allows the audience to feel the story, not just see the story.  when looking at an entire gallery of pieces of nina’s work, i feel as though the color, or lack their of at times, really creates a world with each piece representing a character.

you can check out her work at ninafriday

she is also in a badass garagerock band called the ruiners