Digital Painting with Procreate

Inspired by my husband who is a recreational body builder, The Hunger Artist by Franz Kafka, and Dante's Inferno, this illustration depicts a conflicting space with a warm background and brooding subject. I decided to experiment with warm tones in the background and a dark, hard-lined subject in the foreground over classical themes. I really felt inspired by conversations I have had with my husband about athletics and self development. I find it interesting that we need to be unsatisfied with our lives to be continually driven for self improvement. Many themes surrounding athletics and art are fascinating to me.

The image really represents the mind body conflict of a fast-paced modern society and the tug-o-war with time and space. We have so little time between our full-time jobs and families to devote to our bodies and maintaining health. At the same time how much space and time do we truly need for self development and care? Our society seems very unbalanced in its expectations of our time and demands on our bodies. More often we are seeing long term injuries due to work spaces that are not organically designed or even suited for spinal health.

This picture depicts the thinking man in a loose illustrative style. The original thinking man sculpture was designed to show Dante contemplating his epic poem "the Inferno." I really wanted this illustration to show the intellectual battle of self development, time and space in finite lives, and that bodybuilding and athletics are also a contemplative art. At times the athlete must choose to be unsatisfied with their lives to be motivated to create their art. Their art is their own body much like the artist's canvas in The Hunger Artist. What new spaces can we create for our art?