GRIMACE – an art project consisting of a collection of big sized portraits made with different drawings and textile techniques. This project presents the facial features of elderly people and their charismatic gestures, as well as the emotional and psychological components of the human personality through sketches and drawings.

During my research, I discovered a French neurologist Duchenne de Boulogne, who believed that facial expressions directly linked to the soul of man.

The people portrayed - are real people. Almost all of them are my relatives and my close friends, whom I knew my whole life: grandmother, grandfather, great-aunts, and great-uncles, neighbors. Some of them are not alive anymore.

Before creating each portrait, I made sketches of the model’s face from different angles. I also interviewed them so that I can see their pure emotions – tears, laughter, anger, fear and their grimace face.

The process of production involved different materials: charcoal, acrylic paint, markers, pens, pencils, watercolor. I used a big format to help the viewer focus on the emotions more, as well as giving the chance to observe the techniques.

The personal aspect of this project allowed me to appreciate the beauty of aging as well as the beauty of the human spirit rendered on their faces.

INSPIRATION

The starting point for this project was the research I made about human anatomy and the construction of the human body based on Leonardo Da Vinci's drawings. I learned the proportions, 3D forms and image of the body. Eventually, I got interested not only about the human body shell, but the emotional and psychological component of the human personality. The focus point of my research was the facial features of old people, their charismatic gestures and the great variety of ways to express human emotions.

RESEARCH

As a fashion designer, I was tempted to try new methods of finding my own unique style. And as an artist, I was always very interested in studying people’s faces and exploring them by making a lot of drawings and sketches. Fashion design gives a lot of attention to the character development and the main image of the collection, thus I found the perfect connection between two most artistic fields.

INFLUENCE

The greatest impact on this project was the discovery of the 19th-century phenomenon called ‘The Duchenne smile’ which came originally from french neurologist Duchenne de Boulogne, who studied facial emotions through nerve conduction tests and clinical photography. He wanted to determine how the muscles in the human face produce facial expressions which he believed to be directly linked to the soul of man. His book "Mecanisme de la physionomie Humaine" (The Mechanism of Human Facial Expression, also known as The Mechanism of Human Physiognomy) was the first study on the physiology of emotion and was seminal to Darwin's later work. Duchenne believed that the human face was a kind of map, the features of which could be codified into universal taxonomies of inner states. Guillaume Duchenne identified two distinct types of smiles. A Duchenne smile involves contraction of both the zygomatic major muscle (which raises the corners of the mouth) and the orbicularis oculi muscle (which raises the cheeks and forms crow's feet around the eyes).

This project was also inspired by the art of the British artist Mark Powell & Lee Jeffries's photography.

PROCESS

Because this project was quite personal in many ways I came across a lot of challenges on the way. I wanted to have a unique material, wanted it to be based on my own experience and knowledge. At the same time, I wanted the outcome to be strongly emotional and expressive. I was using different materials: charcoal, acrylic paint, markers, pens, pencils, watercolor.

After approaching 2D visual image I have started to work with the 3D surface, using just the simple cotton, but impregnating it in PVA glue, which gave me the perfect material for playing with the shapes. While it was still wet, I could create any line and curve I intended to and then after a couple of hours, when the material became stiff, I covered it with the paint to create more definition.

Purposely I used a very big format for each image, cause that way it creates 2 different angles at which the viewer can experience not only the power of human expression but also he or she could have a closer look at the actual painting, scan the surface of it.

FUTURE

This project is and will be the greatest base for me as an artist in the future because It can be extended into a fashion collection or textile collection. The most significant part for me is the process and the more I learn and work on this topic the more precise I become about who I am and what I can do as an artist in general.

The video shows the content of the interview with the elderly, which was drawn by Antonina Sedakova. Everyone was asked the following questions:

- What upsets you?

- What makes you happy?

- What surprises you?

At the end of the interview, each of them showed a

grimace.