Signal, 2023 Acrylic on canvas 65.2 x 80.3 cm

Pull up a chair and stare at your reflection. What do you see? While each face has its own unique way of presenting emotions, there are a few select expressions that keep popping up, regardless of a person’s age, race, language, or religion. You are likely to watch your facial features expand and lighten up in a stretch or watch them dull down. And these depend on the emotions currently felt. For decades, human facial expressions are known to be one of the most important non-verbal ways we communicate, but what happens when those features seize to exist?

Painted with minimal lines and pleasant colours, Japanese-born painter Rooo Lou is one of those artists who paints people with minimal facial features. He depicts people of all ages, men and women remove their noses or mouths and replaces them with two little black dots in the positions of their eyes. Lou always begins by drawing digitally – a natural impulse given his graphic design roots. After creating thick black outlines, he fills in shapes with colour. The background comes first, and the palette is then decided around that. For texture, he moves from screen to canvas, using acrylics and keeping his brushstrokes visible. The cartoon-like nature of his work is reminiscent of Pop Art. By intentionally simplifying the facial modeling to the utmost limit, he arbitrarily reduces the emotions brought about by human expressions and the thoughts hidden inside, and lightly expresses the beauty of human modeling. The figurative expression of the human form as a single simple line is pop, but at the same time stands apart from characters that are entrusted with emotions and narratives.

Read the Full Article in our Issue 8