Winston Torr's charcoal drawings.

I somehow found my way onto Winston Torr's website and I'm happy I did.  The Canadian born artist and makeup artist lives mostly in Berlin with occasional visits to LA.  He draws energetic charcoal portraits on newspaper.  In his words:

My body of work deals with the human figure and puts it in relationship with the daily news of a globalized world, utilizing newspapers of various languages that reference my cultural and racial background and the places that I live in and travel to.

By literally making the drawings part of the page, the three-dimensional figures of charcoal and pigment start a dialogue with the mostly two-dimensional space of news items on the page. A dialogue that is both graphical and psychological as my personal and at times intimate experience of drawing the figures becomes part of the news: my news.

Furthermore, the date on every newspaper page places my creative interaction with the depicted person in time and etches it into my personal history.
The technical rawness I like to keep in these pieces are a direct translation of my psychological experience in a day-in-day-out society.

The month of November, he's doing a self portrait a day which will eventually end up as a coffee table book.  Check out Winston's blog to see further drawings.

Above is one of his self portraits.  Since I found his site about a week ago, I've checked back everyday to see his latest portrait entry.  I definitely appreciate the energy and confidence of his charcoal work.

I couldn't resist doing my own drawing of him.

My portrait of Winston was done with pen and ink on 9" x 12" Watercolor paper.

If you're wondering what one of Winston's self portraits sessions look like--- well, in the second part of this posting you'll get a peak. It's unfortunate to have to put an NSFW warning here, but if you're at work or opposed to seeing a handsome naked man drawing, well that's too bad.

Comments

[midevil]

What a cool artist! Thanks for introducing him! Watching his video was pretty interesting as well.

[Jeff]

Wow what energy. I found this oddly inspiring!

[Nathan]

I am so excited to see a feature on my good friend Winston. He's been a very important part of my life for 11 years now, and come so far as a talented and gifted artist. He inspires me.

He'll be so excited when I send this article to him. :)

[Winston Torr]

Hi David!...

Wow!... thank you so much for what you've written about me....:)
I am definitely appreciative...

I love the portrait you did of me... really really love your work! you are amazing!

I just subscribed to you feed, and will be reading your entry's... can't wait for more!

Greetings from Berlin!
Winston

[MaryKate]

All I can say is WOW! What an absolutely beautiful man and gifted artist.

Have to say, though, you're still my personal fav!

[PamYla]

Awesome video and I love the portrait that you did of winston. It looks like charcoal to me, very smooth! I like the banner also, was that done in charcoal?