Wes Aderhold

Wes Aderhold is an artist living and working in New York City. He is self-taught and blends abstraction, figuration, and cubism. He is inspired by the ubiquitous difficulties of life and the underpinnings of being human.

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Aderhold’s deeply personal portraits give fragmented Picasso-like figures a dysmorphic twist. His emotionally layered portraits are dense internal landscapes wrought with tension and psychological dissonance while caricatural elements and exaggerated eyes add a humorous balance. References to the old masters give his style a Dali-esque dream-like quality, with a contemporary cubist twist. By incorporating charcoal and oil pastel line work like that of a Davinci sketch, his figures appear almost confined in their own form, struggling to control their own puppet strings. Duality and generational trauma are often the themes of his work, as represented by the frequent appearance of mother and child. As a self-taught artist he’s able to showcase his understanding of realism while leaning into the imperfection.

Through his use of the familiar, he invites the viewer in easily; it is through the composition of these familiar pieces that the tension arises.

© Wes Aderhold. All rights reserved