Eyes, 2003-5
Conveying emotions via the human figure is essential to the artistic expression of Christina Balch. She paints the dark and the troubled. In Buddhism, it is believed that all life is dukkha, or suffering. Even love and happiness are impermanent and thus unsatisfactory. In her first body of work, Balch reveals human suffering behind human eyes. Eyes are said to be the window to a person’s soul. Perhaps this is why she is moved to paint people’s eyes. Merging the intimacy of a Chuck Close portrait with the dramatic tenebrism of Caravaggio, Christina Balch captures moments of affliction—either contemplative or thunderous.
