Bio

Kay Tur is a self-taught artist who is currently living and working in Mongolia. Kay creates figurative portraits with cartoonish characteristics in oil medium. Two aspects of her paintings set her work apart from the crowd.

First, “face minimalism” as Kay calls it, is the key in her practice. She believes that all parts of a human face are not necessary to convey the emotional state of the particular subject. As a result, her paintings end up having one or two parts such as an eye or a mouth with a “minimal face".

Second, you can find bold, black outlines in her painting where the body or clothing of the subject should be. Inside the outline, the inner world (what the character cherishes or what is important to her/him at the moment) of the subject is shown. Kay calls it the “second brain”. Her works are influenced by surrealism, cubism, and collage arts which created a unique “species” of paintings on its own.

Artist Statement

How far can I go with rearranging and eliminating the face parts of a human being without getting rid of what makes a human a human? It all started with one question. My practice is all about conveying what the subject feels with minimal facial parts on a canvas. To me, it eliminates all the other distractions and gives me a chance to focus on the emotional state of my subject.

My works are inspired by people I meet in everyday life and comic/illustration books I loved when I was a kid. I develop my subject’s distinctive cartoonish character with realist elements mixed in and include various other objects that represent the uniqueness of that particular person.

@kay_tur