Shaun Gribouski's photostream

I work someplace between expressionism and realism to render figures recognizable yet also my own. Due to a lack of first-person access to desired subjects, I often work from photographs, a practice that I view as similar to the sampling and mixing present in Hip-Hop--an already existing work is re-imagined to create a new and original piece of art that stands independently. Almost all of my paintings and drawings depict humans because in my eyes, they are the most personal and powerful subjects. Even in the few pieces where there are no humans present, they nevertheless were inspired by some aspect of humanity. Humanity, in all its shapes from beautiful to hideous, is the one thing that any viewer can directly relate to. Besides being a visual artist, I write poetry and prose, but I sometimes find that some ideas and emotions transcend the written word because they are too abstract, too indefinable, or too raw and primal. Visual art allows me to express such things and hopefully convey these to the viewer, despite my inability to articulate them in words.