Where time slips
Where time slips acrylic and marker on canvas, 93×132 cm – 2026
With this work, DutyGorn expands his exploration of portrait construction, transforming the fragmentation of form into a device that redefines the perception of the image. The face emerges through a balance of geometric precision and painterly gesture, where every element contributes to the creation of a dynamic composition in constant evolution.
Bold color fields, layered planes, and essential marks intersect without ever fully disrupting the continuity of the figure. Fragmentation does not function as a force of dissolution, but as a constructive principle: each painted surface broadens the reading of the portrait, inviting the viewer to gradually reconstruct it through multiple perspectives.
Within this evolution of the artist’s practice, a new protagonist emerges: black. Its presence is carefully measured yet decisive. Rather than serving simply as shadow or contrast, black assumes an autonomous role within the composition, fundamentally altering the way the image is perceived. It cuts across the surface, interrupts its rhythm, conceals while simultaneously revealing. Behind one of the large black fields, an eye subtly appears, as though it belonged to an image slightly misaligned from the rest of the face. This detail introduces a delicate visual ambiguity, encouraging the viewer to question what is truly being observed.
Around this new presence, the chromatic balance of the painting unfolds. Blue establishes depth and stability, while yellow moves across the composition like a source of light, intensifying its visual tension. Red appears in brief, vibrant accents, injecting rhythm and energy into the surface. White, far from functioning as empty space, becomes a compositional pause that separates, connects, and allows the different pictorial layers to breathe.
The painted planes appear to slide across one another, guiding the eye through the work without imposing a fixed hierarchy. The face remains the focal point of the composition, yet it is never presented as a complete or definitive image. Instead, it is the result of a continuous interplay between geometry and gesture, construction and subtraction, between what is revealed and what is intentionally withheld.
The work exists in a constant tension between order and transformation. The solidity of its geometric structure coexists with the fluidity of painterly gesture, giving rise to a surface that speaks not of fracture but of continuous reconstruction. At this stage of DutyGorn’s artistic research, black is no longer merely a chromatic element; it becomes a material presence capable of redefining the balance of the image, opening new possibilities for interpretation while leaving viewers to complete what the painting deliberately chooses not to reveal.
