Portfolio Review: Hueman Tells the Stories Behind Her Colorful, Fragmented Portraits

"About 90% of the time when I paint, I like to 'freestyle.' I'll paint an abstract piece off the top of my head and then find a face in the abstraction. The word for this is 'pareidolia,' when you see faces in places where they aren't. Some people see faces in clouds or in a stain on the wall. I'll find lips or a pair of eyes then build the rest of the piece around it. Sometimes I'll see a whole figure."

"I was approached by Nike to paint a portrait of Kobe, inspired by his 81-point game as well as the release of the Kobe I shoe. I wanted to capture his energy in such a surreal moment in time."

Check out our interview with Hueman about this collaboration here.

"My friend Todd commissioned me to paint a portrait of his girlfriend. She has the most amazing green, hypnotic eyes. He's a photographer, and he sent me a whole bunch of photos for reference, more than I knew what to do with. I couldn't pick just one to work off of, so I combined two of my favorites to create a surreal portrait."

"I painted this for the cover of LA Canvas magazine. I was the first female to be featured on their cover. I like to paint lips in different expressions, and 80 percent of the time they're modeled after my own. This one in particular was intense, aggressive, and a little cocky. I'm usually pretty chill, very mellow, but I do have a fiery, feisty side to me, and I wanted to show people that." 

"I got the opportunity to paint the Studio A hallway at Revolt TV, Diddy's new network. The hallway had so many walls and angles, and I got to make that my creative playground. I wanted to create something that was disorienting and to play with space and dimension, something that I don't usually get to do when I'm painting on one flat surface. My design was inspired by the above lighting fixtures.

"This was my first monochromatic mural installation, and it was nice to take a break from all the color. When you look at the installation from certain standpoints, the shapes come together and form a fluid piece that covers multiple walls. I played with a lot of optical illusions. Diddy came in more than halfway through completion and had me change a few things (in typical Diddy style), but in the end it turned out looking great."

"Last summer I took a trip to Europe and painted in almost every city I visited. It was also my first time traveling anywhere solo. Berlin wasn't a part of my plan, but I heard so many good things about it that I decided to go. On my last morning there, I wandered around looking for a few more walls to get up on before leaving town. I found this one with the broken windows up top and painted a face, and I sort of imagined that her scream was powerful enough to break glass."

"After I left Berlin, I went straight to London and painted this wall in Shoreditch. People told me that there used to be a beautiful, detailed mural on the big wall right next to mine, but it was recently buffed over and covered with a message that said, 'JUST LOOK AT THIS,' in plain black letters on a white background. I don't like being told what to do, so I painted this woman next to it...looking away in the opposite direction."

"When I painted this, I had in mind themes of naiveté and young rebellion. This was one of my favorite color schemes. It's located in the Arts District of Los Angeles."

"Sometimes the most powerful pieces are the ones that come out of nowhere, without effort. I painted this in less than an hour, and it's still one of my favorite pieces. It's a woman with water being poured over her face as if she's being baptized, so I named it Ritual. This inspired my solo project by the same name." 

"I'm intrigued by other artists' spaces and their creative rituals, so for one month I went on a whole bunch of studio visits, observing artists of different disciplines (musicians, singers, producers, dancers, painters, actors) in their habitats. After studying their rituals, I embarked on my own ritual and spent nine days at Think Tank Gallery, where I painted an entirely free-styled mural installation on every wall of the 6,000-square-foot warehouse space.

"I collaborated with some of my favorite artists, including graffiti artist Vyal. I invited my friend Brandon, a wood craftsman, to do his own interpretation of the Ritual theme, so he built a Mayan pyramid slide in the middle of the gallery. It was amazing. During the opening night people were playing on the structure, even skateboarding off of it. I'm looking forward to making 'Ritual' an ongoing project, and will be doing another one this year."

"I was working on this in the studio when Typhoon Haiyan hit the Philippines. I released this as a print on 1xRUN, which sold out, and the proceeds went to UNICEF to benefit the victims."

"This is my latest piece. Perhaps I may have listened to one too many Beyoncé, 'Drunk In Love' remixes. Maybe I was in a nostalgic mood, who knows, but Drunk In Luv is the title. I made this for the upcoming "Laluzapalooza" show at La Luz De Jesus Gallery in Los Angeles, which opens March 7. I love this piece because of all the juxtapositions of texture, the balance of straight edges vs. flowing lines, cloudy forms and solid negative space."