Approx. 25 x 30 cm
Acrylic and oil on canvas.
 
This portrait sits inside a dense black ground, scratched and worked like a night surface. A pale face emerges from the centre, held in loose, distorted proportion, with soft blue pours and beige oil marks drifting around it like hair, noise, or passing thought. The paint is allowed to run, gather, and dry in raised edges, so the figure feels partially formed, caught between clarity and blur.
 
The work is made from lived experience of social anxiety and the sense of estrangement it can create. The darkness reads as isolation, but the portrait is not painted as a warning. Instead, it becomes a study of turning inward narratives into something more generous. The same sensitivity that heightens anxiety can also sharpen empathy, noticing other people’s uncertainty and meeting it with patience.
 
Acrylic pours are used as a process of release. Drips settle naturally, then are left to sit, turning the making into a quiet meditation on presence. At the centre, the face holds the contradiction.