The Rabassa Portraits

I have dedicated "The Rabassa Portrait Group" to my dear friend and colleague Dr. Jorge Rabassa, because of his steadfast support, recognition, and inspiration of my quest to represent the Polar realities and interests in deep cold issues in my art. Through his invitation to CADIC-CONICET in 2004, my interests have become increasingly focused. The portraits in this exhibition are melded with geologic and scientific artistic textures and forms in these prints as a device to describe the scientist and his medium. The "Rabassa Prints" are an ongoing development of a print series of portraits of international scientists that was begun in 2010. Each personality is created by photographically reproducing the facial image and combining a suitable background relating to a scientific background overlay. These composite images are scanned digitally and altered or saturated with color texture and density to manipulate the final print composite. The completed print is intended to visually portray the scientist's unique character and discipline in the portrait series. The "Rabassa Prints" comprise the third group in the series. The first two Rabassa images are shown with layered geologic material while his profile is broken into pixilated elements suggesting stone and geologic material combined to create the scientist's features. Medium: Ink jet press on 90 lb. Arches rag watercolour paper. The "Rabassa Iceberg" print attempts to humorously use the iconic image of Rabassa as a fundamental form of the berg structure. This iceberg is depicted at sea level above and below the Antarctic waterline. The waterline on the iceberg is a devise used by the artist in other paintings. The waterline locates the image graphically as horizon and establishes the iceberg image above and below the water. The "Rabassa Iceberg" also illustrates the fiber optic ability of light to travel through the berg's center form, illuminating the Antarctic Ocean underneath from within by available sunlight on its surface.