Oil Study

Oil on canvas

30 x 30 cm

framed in a black shadow-gap frame (included in the price)

Caravaggio and tenebrism are common terms used to describe my works from the "Subtext" series. However, the themes are far more intimate and personal than those found in the religious motifs of the Renaissance and Baroque periods. The Subtext series began in 2024 with a portrait of my daughter, which made visible the relationship between mother and child, authority and equality, reality and fantasy.

This gave rise to a whole series of (self-)portraits that explore the tension between inside and outside, visibility and invisibility, the conscious and the unconscious. This work is an attempt to convey inner emotional states and personal associations with pleasure through a reduced visual language. Unlike the face, depictions of hands allow for a more intuitive, yet also more ambiguous, access to the world of feelings. Interpretations of the present work range from seduction and joyful invitation to temptation and even poisoning. 

Although these small-scale oil studies are to be understood as approximations and experiments, they are also intended to represent more than just preliminary stages for larger works. Their format allows for flexible integration into various spatial concepts.