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Emerson Pullman is a figurative painter with a dynamic use of colour and technique who creates contemporary portraits exploring the boundary between realism and abstraction. This causes the viewer to pause and reflect. His work alludes to the difference between the trivial and the profound, the transient and the eternal, the surface and the substance, order and disarray.
The intense layering of the paint, the evidence of the brush work and the sometimes incongruous, vibrant splashes of colour demand the viewer’s attention and are a counterpoint to the one ‘perfect’ transitory image. The work is intended to reflect a greater truth than a momentary snapshot can offer. In his latest body of work he developed paintings exploring themes of isolation, memory and introspection.
With subjects depicted either turned away, or averting the viewer’s gaze, he creates a distance between the sitter and the audience inspired by the work of Gerhard Richter and Johannes Vermeer. These are not paintings attempting only to display the characters’ personality and traits, but to hint at something just out of reach for the viewer to contemplate.