Ryan Bradley is an artist who creates tightly rendered pastel drawings of attractive women’s faces that seem to be carved out of space. The compositions are large, with the longest part of the Arches paper averaging 52 inches. The hyperrealistic drawings were created using layers of intricate mark-making and cross-hatching techniques. By emphasizing the negative space that he cuts away with an x-acto knife, he adds a layer of abstraction to these intricately composed portraits. Through this deconstruction of the figure, Bradley explores the nature of hidden beauty.
