This was inspired by some of Chuck Close's artwork at the SF Moma. Chuck Close suffers from prosopagnosia (face blindness), but creates some incredible large-scale portraits. On this subject, Close has said ""I was not conscious of making a decision to paint portraits because I have difficulty recognizing faces. That occurred to me twenty years after the fact when I looked at why I was still painting portraits, why that still had urgency for me. I began to realize that it has sustained me for so long because I have difficulty in recognizing faces."
The style of many of his works is gridded; The contents of each grid often contain abstract patterns with no connection to the overall picture besides the general hue, and yet the face comes through when seen from a distance. To create his grid work copies of photos, Close puts a grid on the photo and on the canvas and copies cell by cell. Typically, each square within the grid is filled with roughly executed regions of color (usually consisting of painted rings on a contrasting background) which give the cell a perceived 'average' hue which makes sense from a distance.
