Stephanie Mysiuk-Bissen

2020 Senior Exhibition Artists

Art + Design: Drawing

Biography

Stephanie Mysiuk-Bissen is an undergraduate student studying to complete a dual BFA degree in Sculpture and Drawing. She makes large scale figurative work. The work is fast paced, mainly done with vine charcoal, and studies the form of the figure in space using an additive and subtractive process with planes and gestural lines.

Statement

Last semester I was plagued by restlessness, and that is reflected in the work I made and the way I was able to work. With this restlessness came a lot time for introspection and the study of my past drawings and what/why certain parts of them were more successful than others. I found that I often focused on the interaction between the hands and the figures they belonged to, or the interaction between them in space. My new work furthers this investigation of the interaction between the hands and the figure by carefully exploring and examining bodies at rest, and the natural and subconscious gestures people make when they are forced to be still; how their hands rest against their legs or a chair, the relaxed fold of someone’s arms, a cheek pressing into a palm. Are they comfortable being observed or are they uneasy? I find myself fascinated by the twisting, fidgeting, and restlessness of one person versus the still, settled calm of the next.

Including the portrait in a composition can be distracting if it isn’t necessarily what you want the viewer to focus on, since it is human nature to be drawn towards “reading” someone’s face more than their body. Is the face or portrait necessary for my concept or is it a distraction? Can you tell just as much about the interior life of a person, their character, narrative and story, by how their body behaves at rest as you can from their face? Can you know them by the subtle expression in their hands and body language? Which of the two is more truthful? With my work I aim to evoke the internal, unconscious states of mind of my subject without reliance on facial expression.