Channelling Chuck Close-Self Portrait

Chuck Close is an artist that I am studying. I used his later work to inspire this self portrait.

For those of you who have never heard of Chuck Close, he is an artist who earned his claim to fame by being a master of the photorealist painting on a massive scale. All these years I thought these ginormous paintings were photographs, but they were actually paintings. For example, the black and white portrait on the back wall in the photo below is one of these realistic paintings. You can find it at the Minneapolis Institute of the Arts.

In 1988, Close suffered from a spinal artery collapse which paralyzed him. He continued to paint on a large scale, but he has since had to adapt his style. Now he paints portraits focusing on one block at a time. The result is stunning.

Here's an example of his later work featured on wikipedia:

For those of you who have heard of Chuck Close, I am sorry for the inept biography I just presented.