Abstraction

This artwork reflects on the fleeting nature of life and on the way memories, encounters and experiences accumulate within us. Faces appear, disappear and overlap across the surface, caught somewhere between figuration and abstraction. They are not intended as individual portraits, but as traces of presence: people encountered, remembered, imagined or already lost.

The composition develops through fragments. Small elements, apparently disconnected from one another, become moments within a larger narrative. A glance, a colour, a line or a portion of a face may seem insignificant when isolated, yet together they construct a broader image. Much like life itself, meaning is rarely contained in a single event; it emerges gradually through accumulation, coincidence, absence and repetition.

The portrait therefore becomes a starting point rather than a destination. As the image is divided and reconstructed, recognition becomes unstable. The face moves between presence and disappearance, while geometry, colour and overlapping planes begin to assume their own autonomy. Abstraction does not erase the figure; it opens it to different possibilities of perception.

My paintings are built through layers, one surface over another, creating what I think of as a kind of acrylic geology. Each layer belongs to a different moment in the making of the work and preserves a trace of what came before. The painted image is then deconstructed, cut and reassembled across different planes, revealing colours, marks and textures that would otherwise remain hidden.

Past and present consequently occupy the same physical space. What was underneath returns to the surface; what appeared complete is interrupted and transformed. Each fragment retains the memory of the original image while becoming something independent.

The work becomes a visual timeline: not a linear sequence, but a collection of moments that collide, overlap and occasionally disappear. Like memory, it never returns things exactly as they were. It reconstructs them.

Perhaps life works in much the same way. People come and go, moments pass before we fully understand their importance, and what initially seemed small can later become essential. From a distance, the fragments begin to connect. A larger image appears, temporary and constantly changing, built from everything that remains.

Artwork Information

Series
Polyptych

Year
2014

Materials
acrylic, tempera, spray and markers con different layers of canvas

Dimensions
455 × 155 cm

Category
Contemporary portrait

Location
Milano, Italy

Exhibited at
IFD Gallery, Milano
OreaMalià Atelier

Links
saatchiart.com

Themes
Portraiture, Fragmentation, polyptych