Pushing the Composition Envelope, Melissa Hefferlin Still Lifes

It is interesting to contrast Hefferlin with Picasso (he is one of my favorite artists). He created some of the best compositions of all time, but he frequently distorted the subjects – like the woman's face, body, and other objects – to make very clever compositional arrangements. But in distorting reality so much he threw the baby out with the bathwater. He was visually saying that reality is a chaos of distorted perspectives that are not true to real life. What is exceptional about Melissa is her ability to tweak these pattern motifs while keeping a realistic perspective, a feat of integration that Picasso doesn't match up to.

Towards Puccini

contemporary oil painting of Opera composer Puccini.

They say that art is the technology of the soul. The best of it integrates sensory experience, appeals to our thinking, an internal logic, our imagination, and taps our emotions. When those things come together it triggers our circuits to fire on all frequencies.