Introduce Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts student, Aaron Feltman. Cover picture: Sunburnt Sweater.
Artist statement
Aaron Feltman currently studies in his fourth year as a painting major at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. In his work, he assesses the relationships that construct his life and questions when the internal relationship a person has with themself becomes interpersonal. Through lies and misrepresentations of the self comes pressure and conflict that can only be assuaged through the devolving of truth through the narrative on a canvas. These conflicts complement the tension of sexual repression and freedom that stands as a poignant theme in his work. Recent events in Aaron’s personal life have exposed an underlying longing for some kind of homeostasis in an ever-changing, unstable world. This search for stability has led him to explore new ways of incorporating these themes formally as well as conceptually within his paintings. Through the use of close values and experimentation with energetic brush marks contained within a geometrically confined structure, inspired by artists such as Arshille Gorky, Bonnard, and Balthus, Aaron begins to construct worlds of his own that make this friction visible.
Aaron finds inspiration in art history to convey ideas of power relationships and often quotes from historical paintings. He reinterprets such appropriated poses through the lens of youth on the cusp of adulthood, focusing on the uncertainty and self reflection that is associated with this period of development. Aaron is interested in the way his figures interact with the space around them and how they can become synonymous with that space or diverge from it through formal aspects. More and more, he is concerned with how the shape structure of the space around a figure can act on the body to create pressure in one scenario and alleviate it in another; thereby helping to convey the mood or emotion he is contemplating in a painting.
Find more: @aaronjfeltman / aaronfeltman.weebly.com
