struggles

I have been looking at a lot of portrait painting online lately. I'm seeing a lot of work that is very good technically but doesn't hold my attention. Maybe it is my perspective but Art needs to have more than technical aesthetic to move me. This is why my favorite figurative artists have been the expressionists. Such as Dix, Beckman and Schiele. I'm missing that in this post-modern World. I do appreciate John Currin and Jenny Saville, but I need more rawness. I think it's because I see people as more than a study. The human form is a vessel which contains a personality, a soul if you will. I want to capture that essence of a person. In the academic World it seems as if attempt to involve too much emotion in a work you lose the aesthetic. I think it is the other way around. Now I must attempt to try and erase some of the 7 years of schooling I've had. That is what I'm trying in these new paintings.