61.1 cm (H) x 46 cm (W)
Oil and acrylic on stretched canvas.
 
Anguish is a figurative work that uses distortion as structure rather than effect. A head is held in a sharp yellow outline, set against a dark ground of saturated blues and black. Within the form, layered blocks of grey, red, and ochre are worked over and partially erased, creating a fractured interior space. The facial features are exaggerated and compressed. A widened mouth becomes the central register of the painting, while one eye is rendered as a bright focal point and the other collapses into a blackened smear and run.
 
Material handling drives the image. Oil is built in dense passages and dragged back to expose under layers, while acrylic is used for sharper graphic edges, drips, and staining. The surface retains abrasion, overpainting, and interruption, allowing the painting to read as an accumulation of states rather than a fixed likeness.
 
The work addresses psychological pressure and the way it alters self perception. Rather than narrative, it relies on colour contrast, scale shifts, and unstable contour to convey intensity. The result is direct and confrontational, an image of endurance held in plain terms, with no attempt to soften or resolve the tension.