ROSY JARRETT

I made this series for my Advanced Drawing class last semester, the 2025 Fall semester. The scale is a little larger than life. 

The models I am referencing here are people I love and admire: best friends, old friends, past teachers, and family. I tried to represent each person's features and expression accurately, but also abstract the colors to lend to different feelings. I chose candid photos that I thought were most compelling, or just photos of a familiar expression that I see as wholly theirs. 

I was thinking a lot about how the soul employs the body to express itself, specifically the face. I value human communication, connection, and compassion; this series really focused on those things. Connection is a little scary, because being vulnerable means risking rejection, but I am always better for being open and curious of other people, even if a lasting friendship isn’t what comes of it. Each of these people have modeled values and traits I want to have more of… their curiosity, their humility, their cleverness, their integrity, their zeal, their gentleness… 

Some have compared these drawings to feeling like memories because of the faded edges, or to the concept of auras because of the loose and abstract bright marks in the background. Also, the tall and thin format of the paper has been compared to cell phones. None of those ideas were intended, but I enjoy that other people are making different connections to my artwork. To me, these are just drawings of people I love, and creating this series allowed me to linger on my thoughts on who each person is to me, or who they are without me.