Hands tied

This painting was started the summer of 2025, and finished around September to October. The dimensions are 16 x 20. I call this piece “Hands tied” as it represents a sense of vulnerability, helplessness and frustration. As if, your hands were tied. The piece visually shows a nude women lying on a soft blanket-like surface faced up, two hands tied with rope, and a close up of the same women screaming while grasping painfully at her hair. I originally started this piece completely unaware of what it would become, sculpting the nude body with a light green.

I spent a lot of time on the anatomy to ensure that it wasn’t just correct proportions, but accurate to what the average body looks like. To get the muscles right, the way the raised knee created a harder crease in her hips. I proceeded to switch to more saturated colors for the shadows to avoid a murky mixture of color. (after lots of trial and error of course). Specifically, I used purples for some definition, and blues for the darkest areas.

The bottom left face being the most detailed, I made sure to leave creases between the brow to display a sense of anger – along with spit to enhance the intensity of the emotions – while the angles of the eyebrows were soft enough to display a contrasting sadness – paired with the tears. The tied up hands were slightly less detailed, with them extending their fingers as though grasping for something, anything.

The three different visuals take up shapes of their own, the nude as a diamond, the hands as rectangles, the face as a circle with arms being minor triangles. And better yet all together, it’s almost akin to a triangle considering the 3 points. This helps give each visual their own respective spotlight.

Additionally I prioritized warm colors and red as I associate anger and love with red, which helps bring out the meaning behind the piece.