Model 1 (Abstraction): Layers of Identity and Transformation

Medium: Mixed Media on Canvas
Size: 4ft x 4ft
Creation Date: 2024
Collection: Hand Painted Photography

This painting emerged from my fascination with layering — not just materials, but identities. Working directly over a photograph, I found myself reflecting on how we cover, reveal, and reshape the images we hold of ourselves and others. The original photograph, once fixed, became a shifting ground as I applied bold acrylic strokes, transforming the figure into something between real and imagined. The vibrant reds, soft blues, and flushed pinks became more than just color; they became a language of emotional tension, vulnerability, and reinvention.

As I worked, I became acutely aware of how the act of painting over an image echoed the ways we construct and deconstruct our perceptions. What do we choose to emphasize, and what do we obscure? The figure’s crossed limbs, the faceless gaze, the almost cartoon-like exaggeration of body parts — they all speak to a playful yet profound exploration of presence and absence, of the body as both subject and symbol. I wasn’t interested in perfect anatomy or realism; I was chasing the feeling of transformation, of crossing the boundary between surface and story.

In Model 1 (Abstraction), I invite the viewer to enter this layered experience, to question what lies beneath the painted gestures and what emerges newly visible because of them. It’s a meditation on abstraction, not just as an aesthetic choice, but as a lived experience — where perception is fluid, identities overlap, and every surface can be both a mask and a mirror.