#HTE

Found Stones Peer Back at Viewers with Painted Eyes

Australian painter Jennifer Allnutt focuses on portraits in her art practice, and most of her subjects are shown from the tops of their heads down to their collarbones. But one of Allnutt’s series defies the norms of bust portraiture. Her ocular rocks feature extremely realistic renderings of eyes. On some of her larger rocks, Allnutt completely envelops each eye with a lid, lashes, and skin. But on many of her smaller pieces, the eye is incomplete, running off the edge of the stone and giving the sense that it is a fragment of a complete face. The artist sometimes returns the painted rocks to the places she found them to surprise passersby.

Allnutt studied Visual Arts at the University of South Australia and most recently exhibited her work at Marfa Gallery in Melbourne. You can see more of her paintings on Instagram and Facebook. (via designboom)