ZOE MILES

ARTIST STATEMENT

Zoe Miles AP Portfolio

 I approached my investigation at the start of the year knowing I wanted to deal with emotion and representative portraiture. Beyond that, I was unsure as to what question of idea I wanted to dig into deeply enough to produce a large body of work. I began experimenting with incorporating literature in ways both subtle and obvious into my oil paintings, and quickly noticed a theme as to the types of writing I was utilizing. Each piece dealt in some way with trauma. I found myself asking how I could portray traumatic events and responses through the intersection and interpretation of portraiture and literature, and this became my guiding question. My works have varied drastically in style and form, ranging from complete abstraction to direct representation of ideas, yet each contains the same underlying investigation. I was deeply inspired by the works of artists such as Basquiat and Anthony Cudahy, who deal with the specific intersection of emotion, fragmentation, literature, and self portrayal.