"In Your Face"

Is it gross? Is it comical? Is it tragic? You decide.

This painting is a confrontation. On the left, a face is frozen in a wide-eyed, manic grin — every pore, wrinkle and stray hair rendered in hyper-textured detail. On the right, a mouth intrudes, tongue out, too close, too familiar. The contrasting dynamics between the two characters creates an instant, uncomfortable narrative — and that discomfort is exactly the point.

'In your Face' came after a long series of my more passive, melancholic portraits. I wanted something that screamed back. I started this piece using only purple and white, letting that strange, bruised underpainting stain everything that followed. From there I built the skin with dry, stippled layers and thin oil glazes — purples, mauves, ochres and sickly yellows — to create skin that feels lived-in, textured, almost touchable. The bruised darks in the mouth and the bloodshot eye are glazed in deep dioxazine purples and alizarin.

I painted it after a trip to Wellington, New Zealand. I was staying in a hostel when a rugby team checked in. Most were nice and respectful, but a couple of the guys were just... cringe. Loud, leering, disrespectful to the women at the hostel. That feeling — that invasion of space, that mix of absurdity and unease — is what this painting captures.

It leaves you with unanswered questions on purpose. It engages you not by being beautiful, but by refusing to let you look away and asking you... "What's going on here ?"