Perhaps these are imaginary siblings …they seem like siblings. This I drew this about 25 years ago. Figure drawings just seem to flow out of me without any intentional focus beyond my awareness that I’m drawing a human figure. Often I won’t even recognize these figures as having any sexual identity.
I think this taller figure on the right is male, if my brother. As for the smaller figure on the left, if that’s me …anyway, my relationship with my brother has never been good.
As a child, my brother would sneak-up behind me and physically attack me, knocking me down on the floor or twisting my arms for no apparent reason. So it’s not surprising that I’m holding both of my elbows close to my sides in this drawing so that he can’t easily grab my arms.
My raised shoulder guards my neck …my grasped ankle another block. If only there had been something I could have done to prevent my brother from randomly attacking me.
If I wasn’t confused enough, my mother was forever telling me that my brother loved me. So then why was I unable to feel my brother’s love.
As for the taller figure’s arms - the left arm and hand droop like a wet noodle while the right arm disappears. At one moment my brother would be super-aggressive - during the next, completely detached. Never an apology.
One thing I did notice about my brother’s unusual gaze (my father’s gaze was similar) — their eyes always seemed focused on the far distance, if beyond their immediate environment.
Their elevated gaze resembled the gaze of someone submerged in a swimming pool of water up to their chin where there would be nothing visible to see beneath their chin.
For both my brother and father this elevated gaze was chronic. I don’t think this was arrogance though my brother has often displays it.
But from their perspective, much of what resided within the first 4 or 5 feet in front of them, was mostly outside their field of vision or not worthy of their focus. I suspect they would fill this foggy blurry space with their own imaginary imagery.
Though I’d drawn both figures on the same sheet of paper on the same day, I later did a cut and paste to place them closer together. Still this only accentuated the tension between them.