Contorted Portraits

Contorted Portraits challenges students to move beyond traditional realism and use distortion as a deliberate expressive tool. In this Drawing & Painting II assignment, students work in oil pastel, beginning with a portrait reference (often themselves or someone they know) and intentionally exaggerate, stretch, compress, or fragment facial features to communicate emotion, tension, or psychological presence rather than accurate likeness.

The project draws inspiration from artists such as Sara Birns, whose work uses distortion, color and expressive mark-making to explore identity and inner states, as well as artists working in a similar expressive tradition like Egon Schiele and Francis Bacon. These references help students understand that exaggeration and discomfort can be powerful visual tools when used with intention.

The rich, tactile quality of oil pastel encourages bold color choices, layered surfaces, and aggressive mark-making. Students use the medium’s ability to blend, smear, and build intensity to heighten mood through unnatural skin tones, heavy outlines, and charged backgrounds. Although the faces may appear distorted or unsettling, each composition requires careful attention to structure, value, and color relationships to remain visually cohesive.

This assignment reinforces essential drawing and painting skills while encouraging risk-taking and personal voice. By intentionally breaking the “rules” of realism—guided by historical and contemporary examples—students develop stronger control over emphasis, composition, and emotional impact, transforming portraits into raw, expressive, and deeply individual works.