Composing internal space through still life painting

In this Dissertation, I will be exploring the idea of composing internal space within a painting. It is a subject matter that I feel very personally connected and passionate about. Within the contemporary artistic community, I feel that space and the fundamentals of constructing a pictorial image are hardly ever talked about. Instead today’s contemporary painting circles I feel are so focused on subject matter and identities, that foundational elements of pure painting are often either unlearned or simply abandoned in favor for heavy subject weight that doesn’t lead very far in visual depiction. Legitimate as it might be, I believe that it is not captivating enough to feed off of people’s emotions on a surface level without giving thought to the overall pictorial image of a painting. Paintings consist of depth and space that transcend beyond the surface of the canvas. There is this idea of spatial perception that true masters of painting think about as they are constructing an image. Meaning for myself and my painter friends, the importance of visual depiction comes from a more “formalist” perspective, giving more emphasis to the foundational elements of painting such as composition, volume, color, values, and space as well as the atmosphere in which objects sit in. In the following pages, I want to bring the discussion back ‘within the painting’.