Approach

In order to capture that same uncanny, familiar-yet-unfamiliar feeling of Gorky, I specifically attempted to redefine "familiar." I swapped Gorky's color palate- in most places- to CMYK substitutions in order to capture a more modern palate. At the same time, I painted the outlines of all the figures from Gorky's original with varying degrees of opacity and hardness in order to create similarly definition-less shapes (in general, the outlines become sharper as the eye moves left to right. In addition, I used the colors themselves to form similarly uncomfortable transitions between hard outlines and other color shapes. Finally, there are a variety of brushes used in between each separate shape and portion, colored shapes weave over and under themselves with varying degrees of roughness. Specific lines are sharper than others which are sharp and taper in a similar manner to Gorky's own. As you move inward, there is simultaneously more detail collapsing on itself and less detail in textures, with the intention of making everything flow relatively smoothly into itself at macro level, but leaving no two spots of the piece looking recognizably similar in figure, form or color.