Fine Art by Daniel Jared Sorensen

Accuracy of representation in my work is a vehicle of exploration. I demonstrate quality and craftsmanship in a piece so the viewer can enjoy the expression and interpretation of the piece. I affirm the importance of the visual aspects of painting as a way to demonstrate the aesthetic value of the work. Artists of the Formalist movement determined art’s value purely by its visual aspects through elements of formal analysis that include descriptions of color, space, line, volume, texture, and composition and sought to reveal the essence of a thing instead of merely presenting its outward appearance through extreme simplification. Though I do not consider myself a Formalist, I am inspired by the principle of Formalism and seek to incorporate it into my work though simplification of form and color to enhance the aesthetic experience. I use basic contrasts of complementary colors or group values together, for instance, to catch the eye or evoke an immediate human response.

Formal elements provide dynamic visual interest in my work. In Spray Bottles (left) I painted two very ordinary spray bottles which in untainted reality are not particularly interesting. I arranged the bottles compositionally to face in the same direction to the left of the canvas with the purple bottle nearly touching the edge of the canvas on the right side. The two bottles and the shadow cast by the yellow bottle create three main forms. The form in the middle of the composition is the yellow bottle surrounded on both sides by the purple bottle on the right and the blue shadow on the left. The temperature difference between the lighter-valued, warm-colored bottle in the middle sandwiched between the cooler, darker blues and purples sets the yellow bottle apart as the focal point of the painting. The limited palette strengthens its composition through low-color saturation of the green top of the purple bottle by not allowing it to distract from the saturation of the intense yellow bottle.

The portrait Jasan with Red Hair (right) contains a similar limited pallet and also divides the composition between warm and cool, with an obvious division between the orange and blue background, and a subtle division between the warm yellows and reds on the light side of the face and the cool blues and greens of the shadow side. A photograph of the two bottles or Jasan in their environmental reality would have minimal visual interest, but as a painting, the manipulative choices in composition, color, and shape transform their reality into dynamic display while maintaining their representational appearance.