Artist Inspiration

Januz Miralles (Photography and portrait inspiration)

In his cryptic and elusive works, visual artist Januz Miralles from the Philippines, explores the beauty and fragileness of the female body by fusing photography, drawing and painting. These photo manipulations, in a monochromatic range of color with occasional dashes of red, sport an unexpected handmade element to their digital images. While the artist and his techniques seem to be as enigmatic as his works, he doesn’t fail to awake emotions in both his strong imagery and their viewers.

In the image above, I love the contrast of the black and grey backgrounds, and the straight lines compared to the messiness of the paint. The paint covers her eyes, imitating a mask almost and reminds me of my theme and the idea of cynicism being used as a protective barrier. The portrait really jumps out at you because the hand and neck continue past the black background.

The harsh black paint creates a powerful contrast to the neutral background and skin, as do the lips. However, the pose makes the image so fragile and beautiful, despite this. I like how the artist left out a section of the head, making the blackness stand out further. I particularly love how the artist allows the paint to drip, imitating tears.

This image has a more dramatic pose compared to the others above. The artist has added bleach to the image as well, which mutates the portrait further, nearly making one forget it is in fact a photograph underneath. It almost looks like a woman who is drowning.

This image stands out dramatically to the rest due to the powerful dashes of red. The contrast is beautiful and really livens up the image. I love the angle that the paint has been applied, pouring down, like a huge weight on the model.