The Screaming Rolfe

24x30 in. Oil Pastel

If a picture is worth a thousand words then a self portrait serves as a journal entry for a present portion in life. This drawing talks about my experiences of working a full time job while going to school full time while running my own studio. The stress is almost excruciating at times and I find myself physically tearing away at my own hair or clothes. The mangled fingers of the portrait pulling away at the face is how I express the tension that I feel within. The intensity of the colors depict the levels of stress that I pass through. It may seem like an exaggeration but i assure you that it is not. There is a very chunky texture in this drawing that really speaks of these rocky times. The chunkiness of the pastel is uncertain and spread out all over my portrait. This mood I express in my portrait intensifies as the end of the year approached and tensions at my job rise. The colors in this painting are like some bomb ready to explode. It is like when metal gets really hot and starts to change color from the heat to red then orange then white right before the explosion.