Andy Downing, Matter:
“Buchanan said her artwork is influenced by comic books and early punk rock concert poster inked by artists like Raymond Pettibone, utilizing a unique, labor-intensive crosshatch style that she said she developed from a “misunderstanding” of the proper technique, and which used to earn her the scorn of instructors in school. Generally, Buchanan depicts her subjects in a more serious light, which she traced in part to her own more stoic nature. “A lot of [artists] choose to capture celebration or joyousness or whatever, but I was always an intense kid,” she said. “As an adult, I try to be less intense, but it’s still my personality.”
For Buchanan, the process of creating a portrait actually begins long before she picks up a pen. She’ll spend hours online researching a subject and engaging more deeply with their work – listening to albums, reading essays or watching films – aiming to gain a fuller understanding of the person to better capture them on the page.
‘When you’re doing portraits, you’re staring at a person’s face for a long time. And this weird thing happens where you feel like you’re getting, not closer to them, but you’re invading their persona somehow, just because you’re concentrating so hard,” she said. “And I do think the more you concentrate on that person, the more you realize those little things they would like to see portrayed.’
Buchanan described the intensity often contained within her portraits as central to her creative process, noting that she can’t even listen to music when she’s drawing, because she finds the outside noise too distracting.
‘People will laugh and say you don’t have to do art so intensely that people know you’ve suffered. But my art is definitely like, you know I’ve suffered, and like my back is going to be bad,” she said, breaking into laughter. “But, yeah, the more you’re surrounding yourself with all of the things that have to do with this person, the more tuned in you are. I mean, they’re just portraits, but I like to get really intense with it.'”
Read the full review on Matter’s website here!
