A child's game

In her portraits, Paulina Archambault (1976, lives and works in Viriginia/USA) searches for the purest human emotions. To do so, she likes to reach back to her childhood. By being as honest and intimate as possible in the process herself, she wants to revive those genuine emotions. While each new work starts with a few rough contours based on an abstract idea, Archambault polishes and tinkers with each image until it is just right. It is to this layering that the work owes its depth and expressive power. The acrylic paint allows her to work in both thicker and just more transparent layers, and to apply texture to the canvas through unconventional tools. Although the frontal portraits sometimes appear terrifying, for Paulina Archambault they primarily express melancholy and childlike innocence. The dark eyes give them a mysterious aura, raising questions about a deeper truth.