Up Close and Personal

 Up Close and Personal

    Are you familiar with the paintings or photographs of Chuck Close? You may not know his name, but chances are that you'd probably recognize his artwork. Close's signature pieces are very large close up images of people's faces. Some are so precise that they look like photos. This art style is called photorealism, and Close managed to perfect it in a way that few others have.

    Close was born in 1940 to parents who supported his early interest in art. In fact, Close knew that he wanted to be an artist ever since the age of four. Although Close was dyslexic and had difficulty in school, art was always his saving grace. He was not particularly popular and a muscle condition prevented him from playing sports, so Close relied on his art for pleasure and enjoyment.

    When he was eleven years old, Close's life changed dramatically. His father died, and his mother became ill with breast cancer. Close himself developed a kidney infection, which resulted in much of the next year being spent in bed. His family lost their home, and money was a source of worry. Through all of these challenges and hardships, art remained a constant in Close's life.

    One of the most influential moments for Close as an artist came during a trip to the Seattle Art Museum with his mother as a teenager. Close saw a Jackson Pollock drip painting, and it changed the way he thought about art. Jackson Pollock was known for his bold and unusual style of creating artwork. Enormous abstract drip paintings were his signature. Close was inspired by Pollock's work, and has continued to be influenced by Pollock's art throughout his career.

    Close enrolled in the University of Washington, where he earned his bachelor's degree in 1962. He then moved east, where he received his Master of Fine Arts degree from Yale University. It was at Yale that Close began to develop his interest in photorealism. The process that Close began to develop involved painting from a photograph onto large, oversized canvas. He used a grid method to transfer the image with great accuracy. Close also experimented with using a variety of materials to create the same large image. He was able to achieve amazingly realistic results using everything from a stamp pad and fingerprints, to watercolors, paper collage, pastels, and graphite.

    Chuck Close's life changed again in 1988 when he experienced a seizure that was a result of a collapsed spinal cord artery. Close was paralyzed from the neck down. He spent months in physical therapy and eventually regained some use of his arms. He's been in a wheelchair ever since, but he has not allowed his disability to prevent him from creating art.

    Today Close continues to paint, now using a brush attached to his arm with tape. He no longer paints the same type or hyperrealism he used, although he still focuses on close up images of human faces. Close continues to paint on a large scale, using the grid method. When you look at one of his more recent paintings up close, it's like looking at a pixilated digital photograph that has been enlarged repeatedly. When you step back and look at it from a distance, the image becomes visible as a whole.

    One of the most interesting things about Chuck Close's fascination with the details of the human face is that he has a very hard time recognizing faces. Close has a disorder called prosopagnosia, which is also known as face blindness. He literally has great difficulty in recognizing and remembering faces. It seems fitting that he has gained such admiration and recognition for the amazing faces he has created. For his many admirers, they are certainly unforgettable.