The Figure as Invention

In my work, the human figure is not observed so much as it is constructed—an engineered body imagined from within. Rather than working sight-size from life to map lateral measurements across a surface, I begin with an internalized sense of structure. Each figure is invented from the ground up, guided by the intuitive mechanics of proportion, balance, and anatomical logic.

Proportion, in this approach, is not imposed externally but arises organically out of the relationships between forms. Does the arm function? Does the leg work, in the same way a jointed machine must work? These are not aesthetic questions alone, but structural ones—questions of form, weight, movement, and inner coherence. The body becomes not only subject but standard. From still life to landscape, all forms in the picture are measured against the expressive and structural truths of the human figure.

This process is deeply kinesthetic. I feel my way through the image as if I were moving inside it—imagining the push and pull of muscles, the pressure of weight on bone, the arc of motion through space. The forms are not copied from life but felt, as extensions of my own embodied experience. This internal sensation—this bodily empathy—is what allows me to invent credible, living forms on the page. It is a difficult process to describe, but in a sense, I don’t draw what I see—I draw what I know, and more importantly, what I feel to be true.