Gina Kiel\'s artistic prowess growls for Visa

Gina Kiel’s artistic prowess growls for Visa

Mar 31 2011

The last time we talked about Gina Kiel we were glowing about her ability to balance beauty and power all along the feminine serpentine spine of her dragons. This time we’d like you to appreciate Gina’s ability to balance the very same paradoxical themes in an arguably more challenging subject matter.

Tigers introduce a new challenge as whilst no one can criticise an illustration of a dragon for not looking “like a real dragon”, people are fascinated by tigers and most of us have poured over pictures of them at one time or another. So our eyes are a little more critical in regard to what looks right.

Illustrators, painters and photographers love portraying tigers, because it’s an opportunity to explore the nature of a wild animal with so much beauty, pattern and poise. Few people can master it though as they tend to overweight one theme over the other so that either the cat lacks its wild nature or it appears too brutish and clumsy.

Gina is obviously not one of those people. They are her favourite animal, her astrological sign and represent the very themes that she passionately paints from her heart. To further your appreciation we’ve included some photos of skateboard decks painted by Gina for a recent exhibition.

To see more of Gina’s work click here or on any image below.