?The subject is my friend, James Kristianto. He is mixed race, and he gets his Chinese and Javanese roots from his parents.
I was inspired by Giuseppe Arcimboldo who was best known for creating portrait heads made of arrangements of objects such as fruits, vegetables, and flowers.
Therefore, I combined phoenix pattern from China and Megamendung motif from Java to represent his identity.
In this artwork, James’ hair is the focal point due to its uniqueness. It was created from folded Indonesian Batik. While the rest of the picture was painted with acrylic and golden marker on aquafine watercolor paper. In general, I used Itten’s contrast of hue. The portrait was mounted on a black cardboard.
Uploaded 23 February 2014