Kevin Hetzel

Artist Statement:

I am constantly investigating the fabric of my own individuality and experience within the world. My work attempts to restructure the Eurocentric tradition of portraiture and the notion of those held in high regard. I use drawing and painting as a direct correlation to the traditions of portraiture, but to now depict those who would otherwise be unknown. Whereas I use collage to challenge the traditions of how a portrait is created through a new means to describe the interiority of the individual. The medium becomes a part of the message and questions the boundaries of identity.

Artist Bio:

Kevin Hetzel (b. 1992) is an artist whose work attempts to challenge and restructure the Eurocentric tradition of portraiture and the notion of those that may be held in high regard. Through the investigation of historic cultural influences and genealogy the fabric and interiority of an identity emerge. Based on the segmentation of social and economic status the defining characteristics of class become a means to describe an identity. Through contextual ideas of recognition of the politicized propaganda that has been created of the individual, their body, and their identity, he seeks to depict the individual, the everyday person as a person. He uses drawing and painting as a direct correlation to the traditions of portraiture, but to now depict those who would otherwise be unknown.

He uses collage to challenge the traditions of how a portrait is created through a new means to describe the interiority of the individual. The medium becomes a part of the message. His work aims to depict not what is realistic, but rather what is true and naturalistic through the portraits of those being historicized. Through laborious brushstrokes, tedious mark making, and carefully cut photographs he connects with working class traditions of production. He becomes a body at work creating a body of work