Helen Oliver Adelson is a contemporary artist who has created several prominent works and large scale portraits. “Her paintings are as much about the figures and places they portray as they are about the negative space, the void surrounding them. HOA’s landscapes are places looking back at us whilst her portraits express a person’s inner landscape, questioning what’s behind the mask/façade.(http://staging.artslant.com/9/events/show/401439-ghosts)”
Helen Oliver Adelson’s paintings are portraits that express inner lives of the subjects by magnifying the aspects of the subjects such as emotion and their facial expression. In most of her paintings, the artist attempts to put less emphasis on subjects’ appearances and attires. Instead, she attempts to project the pore inner lives of the subjects by focusing on the facial expression and body language. When I first saw the painting, it struck me how simple the painting is painted but shows all the emotional aspects of the subject. I first noticed the way the subject holds her hand as it signals fear and obedience. In this particular painting, we can conclude that the subject express negative emotions such as fear and sadness by analyzing her body language. The hand gesture of the subject projects that the subject is fearful and her eyes portrays the sadness. The artist put minimal detail for the other part of the painting such as the body of the subject and the background. As she uses large stroke to paint the background and body, its effect allows viewers to focus on the subject’s inner landscapes.