2022
In recent years, the worldwide boom in fitness and bodybuilding has quietly shaped our sensory responses to the masculine body. Having a background in academic painting, I found that the muscular bodies depicted in Western classical artworks attracted me even more than their narrative or painterly tension — prompting a question: is my preference for these images conditioned by facial features and identity information, and what happens when those are removed?
Three paintings modularize and sculpt human bodies with missing faces, rendered with the skin tone of living flesh yet posed as timeless marble sculptures, their identities suspended in a dissociative state between body and image. By presenting muscular body parts as sculptures on pedestals and public monuments, the work invites viewers to shift their gaze and examine the male body from an unfamiliar vantage point — not resolving a question, is presenting a state of reflection.
Let Go
100 x 80cm
Oil on canvas
2022
Body Part Sculpture-1 , 2022
80 x 50 cm
Oil on canvas
Body Part Sculpture-2, 2022
85 x 50 cm
Oil on canvas