New Zealand-based artist Gina Kiel started her career as an animator. By carefully drawing characters frame by frame, she realized that she loves depicting and engaging with the human figure in her artwork. Today she’s an illustrator, muralist, and tattoo artist. In her large-scale mural The Fountain, above, Kiel contrasts a dark figure with bright, swirling colors.
Many of Kiel’s murals feature dark figures partially covered in layered, concentric (having one central point) colors. In The Fountain, the artist paints a rainbow of ripples around the figure. They cascade over her shoulders onto the floor. She appears to emerge from a bright, colorful pool. Kiel paints the woman realistically, except for the neck, which she slightly elongates. She adds white highlights around the facial features, drawing the viewer’s eye to the figure’s soft, downcast expression.
Kiel paints the wall in the background a flat, bright blue. The artist explains that this color is a reference to New Zealand’s famously clear skies and surrounding seas. How might it feel to swim in a flood of color under a crisp, blue sky?