Untitled (200 x 160 cm)

About the work

One of the large-scale portraits at the heart of the exhibition. Built from layers of sand collected in the UAE, chalk powder, pigments and acrylic, the dense, almost sculptural surface seems excavated rather than painted, with a face emerging from within the canvas. Cracks, scars and accumulated marks become evidence of time's passage: the face is neither victim nor survivor, but a witness. Shown in The Living Archive at Firetti Contemporary, Dubai, an exhibition proposing that the marks experience leaves on faces, bodies and surfaces are not damage but proof of having been here.