The Aura in Digital Painting

Portrait of a Courtesan. Caravaggio. c 1597. 

One of the things I struggle with in my art is depicting real people in a way that conveys something meaningful about how I perceive them. With fictional characters, there's a bit more freedom in the realm of sensitivity to the subject - an artist can't offend a fictional character through a choice of pose, composition, costuming, etc.  (It is possible to offend the character's creator, which is a discussion for a different time.)  In addition, with real people, art tends to give only a snapshot of who that person is. The large body of discussion surrounding the Arnolfini Portrait by Jan van Eyck clearly shows the difficulty and diversity in something as simple as representing two apparently married people. And, at first glance, the painting tells little about the couple except they're relatively wealthy. It is only through interpretation of artistic symbolism and outside knowledge of the persons involved that any further information is gleaned.  In a different example, Caravaggio's Portrait of a Courtesan depicts Fillide Melandroni holding a flower to her chest. Without context and title, there's no reason for a general viewer to assume this woman is a prostitute, let alone one who was a regular artist's model, had a bit of a temper, was involved in many fights including one where she was accused of throwing a knife at another person, and would ultimately see her pimp killed by the very artist who painted her portrait.

Contemporary artistic media offers more options for depicting real people, including home videos and easy access to cameras for family photo albums, scrapbooks, and sharing moments of our lives with friends. Blogs and social networking sites encourage "cam whore" behavior, wherein we obsessively take photos of ourselves in an attempt to "show the world who we are."  It has never been easier to document any given individual's entire life in artwork - in pursuit of a scientific advancement, one researcher even recorded every waking moment of his child's first three years of life.

Despite these advancements, there is still frequently something lacking in portraits of real people. One thing that jumps out at me in particular is a lack of spirit, or 'soul' if you will, of the person. It's exceptionally difficult to create a visual representation of the vibrant energy that separates living beings from masses of fertilizer or organic computers. Even cutting-edge science struggles with what it means to be "alive," both in the medical field and in artificial intelligence or robotics. However, I don't think that means an effort shouldn't be made.

Kirlian photograph. Artist unknown.

Historically, the idea of representing this "aura" or "body of light" in art is not a new concept. It's found in the very earliest artworks still left on our planet, and has been used traditionally to highlight supernatural, holy and spiritually advanced beings. As spiritualism and parapsychology gained popularity in the West, more depictions appeared in art, and photographers even began experimenting with ways to capture this energy on film. Kirlian photography and photography with devices intended to represent auras are two of the most popularly-known types of aura photography. It has been disputed whether either of these types of art have actually captured a living energy of any kind, as both can be used on non-living objects, such as the key pictured here in a Kirlian photograph.

The most successful artworks involving the spirit seem to come from pairing a living artist with a living subject and allowing the representation to be interpreted through the artist. This seems like it should be common sense, but in a world that's becoming increasingly reliant on machines, it's worth noting. In pursuit of this additional feature in art, I've been working on theory and ideas for a new type of digital painting for the last few months. (When I say "new type," I am referencing "new to me." I am certain I am not the only one in the world who's come up with this idea.) My goal with these "digital aura paintings" (for lack of a better term) is to express the vital energies I perceive in the subjects in a way that helps the viewer also understand those energies.

Because the realm of spiritualism, parapsychology and supernatural studies has become highly fractured and diverse in the contemporary era, I'm going to start by clarifying some of the terminology I use.

I use the word perceive rather than see to help clarify the experience. There are many ways to perceive something, but for the general population seeing something means having a direct, visual experience with open eyes. I do not see things any differently than others with my degree of nearsightedness and corrective lenses; however, I tend to observe and perceive things differently than many people, even some of those in the same fields of interest or occupation. Perception is unique to each individual, and in that way, art created from perceptions also becomes unique.

I use the word color in the sense of the general understanding of hue held by the average population.  (White and Black are not "colors" in art terms, and tints like Pink or shades like Midnight Blue are not strictly "colors", but they are widely accepted by the general population as "colors.") When I'm working with colors in aura paintings, I am intentionally choosing colors to represent specific perceptions. The colors I use are based on a system that, while widely used in contemporary discussion, is by no means globally understood or accepted. (Color and what it conveys are connected strongly to culture as well as nature. The best way to observe this is to consider the colors considered "traditionally acceptable" for weddings and funerals. This varies greatly around the globe, partly because of cultural traditions associated with different colors.)

The pallet I work with is not quite as diverse as some charts/pallets found in discussions of aura colors; rather than adding tints and shades, I target specific areas of the figure and cover larger or smaller areas with the color in question to represent degrees of strength in the energy influence. Within my work, I use twelve colors:

Red: Energy, passion, instinct, human potential. Red is frequently associated with the root chakra, centered on the perineum, at the base of the body.

Orange:  Physical needs and wants, reproduction, creativity. Orange is frequently associated with the sacral chakra, centered on the base of the spine and reproductive organs.

Yellow: Growth, personal power, the 'gut' instinct, expansiveness. Yellow is frequently associated with the solar plexus chakra, centered over the solar plexus region, or digestive system.

Green: Emotions, compassion, unconditional love, healing. Green is frequently associated with the heart chakra, centered in the chest.

Blue: Communication, expression, independence, security. Blue is frequently associated with the throat chakra, centered in the throat or larynx.

Indigo: Seeker of spiritual truth, clarity, mental intuition, balancing higher and lower selves. Indigo is frequently associated with the third eye chakra, centered in the middle of the forehead.

Violet: Universal consciousness, connection to the spiritual world, spiritual strength. Violet is frequently associated with the crown chakra, at the top of the head.

Pink: Unconditional love and balance between spiritual and material worlds. Pink, as a tint of red, reflects a high energy in these areas.

Brown: The Earth, practicality, common sense, the material world. Brown is a tertiary color, and as such blends energies together.

Gold: Understanding, healing, service to others. Gold can intensify the presence of orange and yellow.

White: Purity, clarity, spiritual progress, healing. White is ultimately all colors in perfect harmony. White is sometimes associated with the crown chakra in place of violet.

Black: Hidden facets, mysteries, harboring negativity and the unconscious. Black is ultimately the absence of all colors and reflects the loss of those energies.

Working with this as my pallet, I create a portrait as I normally would of any person or character. I apply multiple layers of overlapping airbrush-style color regions below the portrait as the base aura, then apply another set of layers above the line art layer to intensify or add to the aura as necessary. I use the Gaussian Blur tool to help diffuse the airbrushing to the degree desired.

The first completed portrait I've done this way is Mother Monster, a portrait of Lady Gaga. This provided an additional level of challenge for me to work out. With public figures, who the person is in private and who they are in public are two different things. Even those who truly try or profess to be 'themselves' or 'real' on television have an additional layer of energy that's not normally present, because they know someone is looking at them. (This is why some children turn into hams and some become quiet or withdrawn in front of a camera, even though it's not typical behavior for them. Even if it's just a family photo, they have come to learn the presence of a camera means an image of them that is going to be saved and probably shared with others.) The degree to which this affects any given person varies tremendously, and without knowing the person intimately, it can be difficult to pick apart. Again, this is where the artist's perception comes into play, rather than what the artist is seeing. In this way, the artwork becomes a snapshot of how I (the artist) perceive the subject at that point in time.

This experiment in art has been a fun, challenging experience, and I have plans to keep working on it. I've started setting down ideas for a portrait of the Ghost Adventures team (Zak Bagans, Nick Groff and Aaron Goodwin), Josh Gates of Destination Truth, and Prince Poppycock, singer and performing artist. The decision is partly because these are very high-energy personalities in public, but it's also partly because they're the only public figures I'm interested in looking at for any length of time at the moment. (Charlie Sheen is at the bottom of my list. Seriously...that ball of wax isn't very pretty right now, and it's not likely to improve soon. I'm trying to spend as little time on that particular celebrity as possible. :/ )

I'd also encourage any other artists who are interested in taking this idea and running with it to do so. There's this paranoid fear of "copying" out there, but any and every idea can always be improved on. Remember my motto when it comes to sharing my ideas and art: TAKE-USE-EAT. REDUCE-RECYCLE-REUSE. Most of all, enjoy yourself! <3