u/ShaeMeyer

Just a spattering of portraits I’ve done recently. I’m kind of coming around to this idea of the sculptural bust rendered flesh in oil portraiture. Of course mixing abstract elements in alongside.
I’ve been trying to figure out where the obsession of disrupting the facade of the face has become so central a theme for me. I think it’s mostly from a genuine discomfort with society placing so much emphasis on looks, and how we have developed social media to repeatedly reinforce that ideal. It has just always made me feel incredibly vain, and self centered…. So i have just started obliterating these beautiful superficial faces we focus so heavily on. I have too often seen whole groups of people sitting there taking selfies, and I am just disturbed by that lack of real interaction, where time spent with friends is actually looking at yourself on your phone.

Just working through my intuition in real time on Reddit😂. Thanks for following along, I hope I’m not the only one who is perceiving society and social media this way.

Just a spattering of portraits I’ve done recently. I’m kind of coming around to this idea of the sculptural bust rendered flesh in oil portraiture. Of course mixing abstract elements in alongside.
I’ve been trying to figure out where the obsession of disrupting the facade of the face has become so central a theme for me. I think it’s mostly from a genuine discomfort with society placing so much emphasis on looks, and how we have developed social media to repeatedly reinforce that ideal. It has just always made me feel incredibly vain, and self centered…. So i have just started obliterating these beautiful superficial faces we focus so heavily on. I have too often seen whole groups of people sitting there taking selfies, and I am just disturbed by that lack of real interaction, where time spent with friends is actually looking at yourself on your phone.

Just working through my intuition in real time on Reddit😂. Thanks for following along, I hope I’m not the only one who is perceiving society and social media this way.

I’ve been exploring a lot more with portraits and abstraction, I’m really excited by this direction, and exploration. Just haven’t seen very many people working like this and hoping I can find people who like this kind of work, or are making something similar. I haven’t had the opportunity to show more than one or two of these pieces in real life yet.
Deeply rooted in psychology and identity, and ontological concerns over the nature of our existence as individuals. (Or perhaps whether we do exist? Or rather “I” exist.)

I’ve been exploring a lot more with portraits and abstraction, I’m really excited by this direction, and exploration. Just haven’t seen very many people working like this and hoping I can find people who like this kind of work, or are making something similar. I haven’t had the opportunity to show more than one or two of these pieces in real life yet.
Deeply rooted in psychology and identity, and ontological concerns over the nature of our existence as individuals. (Or perhaps whether we do exist? Or rather “I” exist.)

I’ve been exploring a lot more with portraits and abstraction, I’m really excited by this direction, and exploration. Just haven’t seen very many people working like this and hoping I can find people who like this kind of work, or are making something similar. I haven’t had the opportunity to show more than one or two of these pieces in real life yet.
Deeply rooted in psychology and identity, and ontological concerns over the nature of our existence as individuals. (Or perhaps whether we do exist? Or rather “I” exist.)

Triptych from my BFA show wayyyy back in 2015! Individually titled “silent” “void” and “a million years in a second”. 58”x68” each. Made from acrylic, blood, bone, stone, latex, enamel, spit, and copper. They were based on a series of apocalyptic dreams I was having at the time… which were strangely uplifting.

Anyway here they are if you want to read them, I know, I know, no cares about other people’s dreams, but that was the reality of my young mind. I don’t usually share the dreams, but wanted to have them somewhere, and here seems as good as there.

1: Failing foresight, 20/20

I am a bartender on a boat, or maybe a restaurant manager on a cruise ship. I have three

daughters, one has red hair, one black, and one blond. We have hypnotized the pigs, so they

don’t mind when we slaughter them, and they wander around docile as bunnies. My daughters

are playing while I work. Their joy undiminished by the cold sterile stainless steel and cold tile

of the kitchen. I’m carrying a pig’s head on a silver platter, there is an apple in its mouth and it

rests on a bed of kale, the red and green seem to glow in the gloom of the monochrome room.

Another pig walks at my side, like a loyal dog, eyes glassed over, vacant, it has no idea that I’m

carrying its brother’s head. My daughters are playing. As I set down the platter a voice drifts

from the kitchen, “mommy” it whispers.

My heart drops, pulsating in my stomach.

I look over at my daughters, they are not playing anymore.

The one with red hair looks up at me, arm clutched to her chest, eyes** **wide “someone needs help”

she says. The words reverberate in my ears, ricocheting in my brain. “I know” slips from my lips

with a vague feeling of inadequacy knocking at my intestines. I can feel my children’s eyes bore

into my back. I reach the kitchen. Light comes only from the industrial refrigerator, spilling onto

an emaciated sow, ribs protruding through taught pale skin. A baby pig is next to it whimpering.

she had broken the hypnosis to feed her child, but there was not enough for both of them. All my

organs switch places my stomach is in my mouth, my heart is floating in bile, and everything

else has fallen out, ears ringing, brain fumbling through static.

3:00 am my heart tries to break my ribs. My lungs cant get oxygen. The light from the

refrigerator cuts across my bedroom.

There is someone here**.**

2: Fall-Walk-Fall

The world is on fire. Ending. I can see the flames devouring the mountains over the

top of a BUILDING. Ash falls with ease, choosing its resting place with grace. I walk. There is

a Convenience store. Pond with a stream, Bridge Of Wood to reach the other side.

An oak looms large, shedding its leaves in waves of crimson and golden yellow. It is

fall here, the kind of fall where you can wear a light jacket and scarf, walk the pavement

while a warm breeze rustles the leaves at your feet. There are sturgeon in the pond, white,

Russian, one foot to three.

The air looks golden today, you can see every beam of light from the sun, living

solely to court the rippling surface of the water. The store is of a large cross beam

construction, the porch is worn with two rocking chairs and a small table on it.

Two small steps.

The screen on the door has holes in it, not many, but a pristine few, the perfect amount.

The door has an old fashioned bell which tinkles gleefully at you as you enter.

There is a round table made of wood, there are no products for sale. The proprietor is native

American, the lonely soul of the convenience store. He is resting his elbows on a bar

counter, head hung low, he waits alone for the future to become the present, the bell makes

him look up. He has no American spirit blues, he has no Amer-i-can spirits. The bell jingles

merrily in the face of apocalypse as I step outside to watch the world burn. There is a

package to the left of the door. I pick it up. There are American spirit browns in it. The bell

jingles merrily in the face of apocalypse as I reenter to inquire about purchasing the

cigarettes.

The small convenience store is crammed full with people in fall sweaters, drinking

and chatting. There must be a fire somewhere to make light which looks like this, smells of

burning pine. I don’t know any of them. The wise proprietor of the Convenience store walks

up to me smiling. He laughs pulling out a roll of money. Handing me some he pays me to

take the cigarettes and says to run down the Street and get some sandwiches for him and

his friends, he will owe me lunch for this, he says, laughing at a joke I will never understand.

The bell jingles merrily in the face of apocalypse.

I step outside, the world is on fire. The air is golden and crisp, I can see every beam

of the sun, whose life is to run on the smooth surface of the water, to jump and dance on the

falling leaves of gold and red. The heels of my boots reverberate back to my ear as I cross

the wooden bridge. The fire has reached the city,

it screams upward,

I can see it licking the edges of the atmosphere.
I walk the concrete, a light jacket, scarf, knit gloves. A warm breeze rustles the oaks

crimson and yellow leaves at my feet. The air is crisp. A smile splits my lips.

3: An overt threat from the Subconscious: death of the I/ welcome to New York City

The night holds the black usually reserved for a moonless Midnight fog, in a dense

canopy of trees. The stars offer no respite, and the only hint of form I can make out of the

darkened familiar shopping center is Illuminated by the deep flashing purples of an

electrical storm broiling amongst the peaks of the mountains. It is warm. Summertime. But

there are no cars, no people, no trees, and the stark buildings offer no salvation of light in

their onyx windowpanes. I begin to walk the familiar path from the corner, around the

Starbucks, behind the tac-o-bell, and towards my old safe house of the brew-Ing-mark-it. As

I begin to pass through the parking lot, I realize that there are people there behind the

veiled obsidian glass of the windows, they whisper of the evils they dream of, their voices

carry across the silent void, amplified by the

deafening

flashes

and silence

of the electrical storm

crashing in vehement waves behind me. The violet flashes launch my crippled shadow fifty

feet in front of me, illuminating my frayed edges in SHARP relief. After a time of watching

their voices plot across the failing distance between us, I slowly turn to my left, and

wander towards the street searching for some solidarity from the stoic road. I trace the

Sidewalk which lines the street, following its path back towards the star-bucks,

which waits my arrival in ominously complacent silence. As I near the parking lot I realize

that time has been Ravaging the concrete, cracks and fissures run in joyful chaos

through the extent of the parking lot at recalcitrant angles, rarely capitulating to my

desire for them to REJOIN. Roots from long dead trees have forced the sidewalk into waves

which crest and crash in on Themselves. As I stand there wasting away, enjoying the power

of time, I hear the muffled yell of an unintelligible word float slowly though the void of time

created by the violet lightning frozen and static, washing the landscape like subway graffiti

by the third rail. As I try to decipher the meaning of the sound pulsating through my brain I

see a man running from the darkness, his form moving as slow as the sound which recently

burst so violently from the confines of his throat. He is wreathed in the rags of a vagabond,

the outer shell billowing behind him in his haste, frozen in slow motion. His face is lined

like the rapidly deteriorating cement I am standing on, ravaged by the force of a million

years condensed into seconds. His beard is white like a glacier in an oil spill. His hood hides

his hair, but in his eyes I see the storm gathering behind me, his irises are so blue that they

appear white, and his oversized pupils are threatening to consume me. I try to scream, or
run, as his disembodied call slowly washes over me again, but I am frozen in place. I watch

in paralytic horror as the time and space between us collapse

Mixed media on canvas, circa 2014.

This was a painting from my junior year in college, about 50”x50” I think, circa 2014. Mixed media on canvas. I was really into the idea of glazing tons of thick acrylic layers using lots of medium and not much pigment. Which made the little rolls polly about 1/8-1/4 inch thick on the canvas surface. It’s something I’ve been meaning to experiment more with, on a larger scale, but haven’t done it yet.

16x20 inches oil on canvas, 2025. Another study into abstracting portraits.

16x20 oil on canvas, 2025.

I’ve been leaning more and more into abstracting away the face in my portraits, and genuinely enjoying the results. Anyway, I hope they spark something in some of you too😊.