Katie McGuire

My work is always about human life: portraits, full figures or partial figures I usually paint psychics, gypsies, musicians or homeless people. My work is done in unrealistic colors. I work from photograph, and use my imagination, intuition, and fantasy to embellish the painting. Aiming to create a world oscillating between dreams and reality I want to paint the person’s aura, soul, energy, or situation in life, an image of a mystical person in a mystical world. My pictures are both light and dark showing the individual light and dark aspect of their relation to the world. I am influenced by Tarot Cards, Surrealism, Expressionism, Bay Area Figurative, Beat Artists, and Abstract Expressionism.

“Man With Flower II” is a portrait of a man that I took on Venice Beach sitting on a bench behind him is a trash can to show where he was sitting while on the bench there is a rainbow to represent hope. He is in darkness, but the fluorescent colors are bringing light to the situation. It is a painting and a collage there is a foam glitter heart sticker where his heart is, and there flowers in and around the trash can to show brightness from dark, the umbrella is shelter and the flowers represent growth. There are plastic beads glued onto the painting in collage form to add to the areas of fluorescent color “Woman Surrounded By Pink Suns,” Spray paint and oil paint on masonite, 3’x4,’ 2014 This is a portrait of a homeless woman that I often see walking around Hollywood She does hold cans of flowers and wears a scarf I wanted to create a mood with this painting about her and the environment that surrounded her She is in the hills with flowers growing around her with pink and purple suns dripping in the sky Her eyes are different colors to represent her psychic aspect of what she sees The flowers are dripping to show growth and decay.