Chuck Close Essay

Chuck Close Chuck Close A Portrait in Progress is an extremley interesting and educational short film that walks the viewer through the life of the esteemed artist, Chuck Close. The movie explains the feats that Close overcame as well as the ongoing stuggles from his disability. Furthermore, this film depicts the changes in Close's artwork and the reasoning behind his form of expression. The story of Chuck Close belongs to both the world of art and to the annals of human triumph over adversity. Originally drawn to painting as a means of dealing with a childhood learning disability, Close began his career by creating massive black-and-white portraits, astonishingly detailed and sometimes brutally realistic. Having caught the attention of
In the late 1970s, rediscovered color and over time developed and transformed the idea of color into his own style. He began using colored dots of different sizes and unique combinations. Close uses three colors (red, blue, and yellow) he created countless other colors. This method is similar to Pointillism which the concept is to create a solid space using dots of two or more colors in an area. These colored dots mix from a distance creating a new color. “Color isn't just there in the tube for Close; you make it on the canvas. And color isn't something you plan in your head and then try to copy; you find color, through the painting process itself.” Close began to experiment with color and a variety of different media’s and techniques. One of these techniques involved the printing process. Close would use only cyan, magenta, and yellow and apply one layer at a time over the canvas. Another innovative technique was his fingerprint series. Close would ink his thumb and forefinger and press them to the canvas to create a varied range of grays. Viewed up close, the whorled patterns of his fingerprints can easily be seen; from a distance the method is unrecognizable, and the fingerprints merge to generate an illusionistic