Pentiment

BODY OF WORK

›Pentiment‹ challenges the notion that a painting is only what is visible in the present. Overpainted layers conceal human traces of past compositions, mirroring life’s temporary nature.

Traditionally, the term Pentimento refers to unintentionally revealed traces of earlier compositions beneath a painting’s surface. While the final layer is typically seen as the ›true‹ artwork, concealing what came before, my work questions this perspective. I invite viewers to see the hidden parts as equal, intentionally embracing the act of overpainting to explore the relationship between what is revealed and what remains obscured.

In this body of work, some layers are allowed to subtly emerge, while others are deliberately hidden, never to resurface. Scratches expose faint underlayers, a glimpse into the past, undermining the belief in eternal perfection. A dusty film of raw textures veils the beauty beneath, like a distant memory. Both creation and destruction are equal in my process.

The fragmented, intertwining human forms merge into the sum of our collective existence. Mudded greys, as the amalgamation of all colors, all life. Reduced to their most elemental state, the figures I depict resist specific identities, instead becoming anonymous proxies for our shared human condition. A visceral mass of limbs materializes, barely discernible at first glance, in a shared moment of transition into a quiet unity.

Through Pentiment, I hope to remind viewers of the delicate balance between presence and absence. My paintings, as anti-monuments, counter sculptures that glorify youth and legacy by celebrating transience through figures deliberately created to be forgotten. In confronting mortality, each painting becomes a meditation on finding liberation in finitude, as this very impermanence creates significance.