Tag Archives: Picasso

Facepainting Event: Modern Art Faces in Philly – Pt.1: Britt

We had a wonderful day on Saturday at the Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts. The weather was perfect, the streets crowded with people and the event was extraordinary. While I was performing my storytelling show, we had a team of facepainters transforming the crowd with faces to suit the theme of Paris of 1910-1920 — faces based on the Modern Artists that themselves transformed what painting and sculpture looked like in that fertile, creative time in Paris. Our company was hired for the event by The Kimmel Center and the facepainting was free for the public, so the lines were long. The crowd, though, was in a great mood all day, despite the wait, and people were very receptive and excited about being turned into Modern Art.

Britt painting a face using a detail of fabric patterns from a Matisse painting

Here are a collection of faces from one of our company, Britt. Each of our artists brings their own style and interpretation to the Transformation Facepainting concept. I continue to admire Britt’s use of soft colors and the expressive  quality of her brush strokes. I feature her today because I feel her approach to this theme captured the spirit of the artists that inspired our faces for this event in a way I can learn from.

from Picass Head 1961

Picasso inspired bird face

from Monet's Women with Parasol

Monet waterlilies - an idea that inspired several faces

Monet's painting of a sunset in Venice

Monet inspired Paris scene - Eiffel Tower

Another of Britt's take on Monet-esque Eiffel Tower

Monet's garden, with footbridge

from a Max Ernst painting

from one of Matisse's gold fish paintings, again Britt used a detail of a famous painting to craft the face design

from Paul Klee painting

from a Gauguin painting

from an Andre Derain painting: "The Dance"

taking other elements from an Andre Derain painting: "The Dance"

Thank you, Britt, for such an expressive contribution to our collective art at PIFA.

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Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts – PIFA – Saturday

A bunch of us are heading to Philly to paint and perform this Saturday for the PIFA street fair produced by The Kimmel Center. From their website:

“Broad Street transforms into a slice of Paris, with street vendors, café tables, a grass-laden park, live music on two Festival stages, and a giant Ferris Wheel. Don’t miss the thrilling climax, as world-renowned French theatrical troupe La Compagnie Transe Express performs 100 feet in the air!”

http://www.kimmelcenter.org/events/pifastreetfair.php

I will be performing my storytelling show street theater style at 11:30 am and 3:00 pm, at the Amphitheater.

Two shows will mean two different sets of stories.

We also have a team of artists there painting faces. The theme of the whole event is Paris 1910-1920, so our artists will be painting faces inspired by artists associated with Paris of that era — Impressionists, Fauvists, early Modern Artists — and other French themed imagery. The participants will be asked to sit down and be turned into a work of art — no requests, every face a surprise. Even though there is nothing that excites me as much as performing, I’m a bit envious that I won’t get to do the painting, it’s just the kind of painting I love to do.

To support my artists in their own explorations of the theme I collected images of artwork from the era and asked them to find additional examples. I also have a lot of examples of faces I’ve painted that fit because I’ve been incorporating modern art into my facepainting since I painted for a Picasso exhibit at the Nassau County Museum of Art in 2006.

 

One of the faces I painted at the Picasso exhibit in the Nassau County Museum of Art, that started me on an exploration of modern art on faces.

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