Photo credit: Peter Dolese
About Tessa Raven Art
My name is Tessa Raven Hancock and I am a young visual artist from Oklahoma City, though I’ve lived all over the state the past couple of years. I currently reside in Ada, Oklahoma, where I make art all the day long!
I feel that my art is very instinctual. I love people watching, seeing their characteristics; the way someone stands or smiles. For me it's very natural to draw people, though they’re rarely drawn from a model, rather inspired by many faces. When I create I sort of shut off my mind and just let come whatever wants to come, I suppose this is what I mean by instinctual. I think I sort of subconsciously draw from experiences in my memory to create a character and portray an emotion, sometimes it turns out being something very meaningful to me, without any sort of planning.
I find people interesting; The way we look, and act, and think. I love watching people look at my art, once a woman just broke out in boisterous laughter. It made me so happy. Sometimes when I’m drawing characters I make even myself laugh with how funny they look. We’re all people, and I think when you draw a person there is something captivating to the viewer, something relatable, in the funny ways and in the more serious ones. It’s often something that we can’t quite put our finger on but still draws out an emotion from us. I think great art and design is often captivating to us on a level that is indefinable. I feel that a lot of people have an aversion to fine art though, and I can honestly understand why. There is a lot of falsity in the fine art world, just like many other crowds. My hope is to show how art can relate to people. Just like movies, music, or books are common parts of life, even intricate parts, art and design are all around us! And there are so many wonderful things about visual art. I love that it can express so much by actually saying very little, like Chaplin. At least I’d fancy myself to be like Chaplin.
Influences Include:
Gustav Klimt
Vincent Van Gogh
Egon Shiele
Andrew Wyeth
Henri de Toulouse-Leutrec
Herakut
Tamara de Lempicka
Jamie Hewlett
Margaret Kilgallen
Alphonse Mucha
Leonardo de Vinci
Ralph Steadman
(more to come)
I feel that my art is very instinctual. I love people watching, seeing their characteristics; the way someone stands or smiles. For me it's very natural to draw people, though they’re rarely drawn from a model, rather inspired by many faces. When I create I sort of shut off my mind and just let come whatever wants to come, I suppose this is what I mean by instinctual. I think I sort of subconsciously draw from experiences in my memory to create a character and portray an emotion, sometimes it turns out being something very meaningful to me, without any sort of planning.
I find people interesting; The way we look, and act, and think. I love watching people look at my art, once a woman just broke out in boisterous laughter. It made me so happy. Sometimes when I’m drawing characters I make even myself laugh with how funny they look. We’re all people, and I think when you draw a person there is something captivating to the viewer, something relatable, in the funny ways and in the more serious ones. It’s often something that we can’t quite put our finger on but still draws out an emotion from us. I think great art and design is often captivating to us on a level that is indefinable. I feel that a lot of people have an aversion to fine art though, and I can honestly understand why. There is a lot of falsity in the fine art world, just like many other crowds. My hope is to show how art can relate to people. Just like movies, music, or books are common parts of life, even intricate parts, art and design are all around us! And there are so many wonderful things about visual art. I love that it can express so much by actually saying very little, like Chaplin. At least I’d fancy myself to be like Chaplin.
Influences Include:
Gustav Klimt
Vincent Van Gogh
Egon Shiele
Andrew Wyeth
Henri de Toulouse-Leutrec
Herakut
Tamara de Lempicka
Jamie Hewlett
Margaret Kilgallen
Alphonse Mucha
Leonardo de Vinci
Ralph Steadman
(more to come)