Jason Brody

Artist Statement: I drew this picture because I needed to find a face for a portrait assignment and this was the only good one that came to mind. It’s the face of the protagonist of a video game that makes interesting commentaries on human nature via the change of an average twenty-something into a jungle warrior. The character goes from SoCal party boy to John Rambo over the course of the story, and I wanted to put into black and white an issue that, in reality, has countless shades and factors to it. The ebony pencil medium was supposed to exemplify this—the character is trying to cope with two different worlds (the one he comes from and the one he’s in) and struggles to find a medium between the two because he can’t see either side clearly anymore. In short, I wanted to use black and white as a medium to represent the oversimplification of human nature.