Syncope

In this painting I attempted to capture the experience of fainting as I had felt it shortly before creating this painting.

The sense of retreating into onesself and losing the ability to observe your surroundings is depicted by composing the piece with minimal negative space, to reduce the presence of the background, and by blurring the background into the portrait itself to make the distinction less obvious.

A physically sickening feeling is represented with the choice of contrasting colours used in the portrait, with blue highlights placed next to more orange tones.

Vertical lines of colour dragging down from the face are used to bring to mind the imagery of an object melting, to represent the sense of slipping into unconsciousness.