Artist: Jonathan Yeo
Jonathan Yeo is a British figurative artist. Specializing in portraiture, Yeo has worked with many celebrities and other world class artists such as Kevin Spacey and Damien Hirst, giving himself a big reputation. I first saw Jonathan Yeo's work when i went to his exhibition at the Laing art gallery in Newcastle, as a huge fan of portraiture I was amazed by his work; the life was captured beautifully in his portraits as they really give off expression and liveliness in their faces. Yeo captures this lifelike expression by always drawing from a model as it shows detail that a photo cannot capture, giving the painting depth, One of the main reasons I love Yeo's work is the way he draws attention to the face, by putting immense detail into the face making it hyper-realistic, whilst the hair and body is often left unifinished as just an outline, this draws all of the attention to the face. Furthermore, the background is often created using similar palettes to the model in the painting so it does not contrast too much, whilst the background is also very messy and unfinished, some still with grid lines. This look that Jonathan Yeo creates is the reason why I love his work as it's an amazing style contrasting messy with beautiful portraits, making the elements compliment each other to work as one.
