Skull - Amy Tsui

In Amy Tsui’s pencil sketch work, she draws a huge skull with very detailed facial structure contour on a 30’’×40’’ white paper. This work shows an interest in the concept of structure and formation.

The work is constituted by a basic outline of the skull and a large number of contour lines which are well organized in depicting the ups and downs of the face. The development of these contour lines produces a certain visual movement that it may catch the viewers’ eyes to focus on the whole formation of the skull and to track on its structure. Also, the curving of the lines suggests a facial space which is not just flatly depicted but more three dimensionally developed. This visual space looks even more outstanding to the viewers with the depth of the hollow eyes. Amy’s careful use of thinner and denser lines for the right eyes of the skull leads to a relatively lightness of this area. Such lightness works very well with the hollowness of the skull’s eyes and generates a strong unevenness of the face. Therefore, the depth of the eye is perfectly expressed. However, this visual effect is not used on the left eye and the same density of the lines makes the left eye less distinctive from the rest part of the face, where the viewers may feel a little bit unbalanced for the two eyes because of the asymmetry.

Unlike a digitally produced three dimensional contour work, the use of pencil makes the lines soft and not as smooth as the digital one. These lines make the contoured face look like a flexible net covering the skull. With the extending lines on the forehead, the incompleteness of the lines’ covering leads to the viewer’s notice of how this structure of the face interacts with the whole object in the picture. Along with the minimal and systematic use of black and white lines, there are very limited shades and values on the skull, while it still retains an effective three dimensional looking for the viewers. At the same time, because of the simple method of drawing the skull, the viewers are more attracted and focused on the complexity of the line structure, which is also the artist want the viewers to see.

The skull as a symbol of death, however, is an important part of human body. It shows a primary condition of human and also a relationship between the formation and the ending. The structure of the skull suggests a pure interest in the reason for human death and how death is necessary as part of human life. However, the contour lines of skull face only shows a visual structure to the viewers that this structure doesn’t directly suggest any specific content of the work. Therefore, the content of this work is relatively less distinctive because the artist is more focused on formal and technical part of this work.

In conclusion, Amy Tsui’s pencil work is a very successful visual experiment and the detailed and careful drawing on the large scale paper is even more impressive.

-Mengyu