In Eyes and Mouth, I strip my self-portrait down to the absolute essentials. On the canvas, I use raw adhesive tape to bind, section, and confront the flowing, unpredictable textures of oil and acrylic paint. But breaking through this tense, artificial surface are fragments of raw African amethyst, carrying a quiet, heavy energy from deep within the earth.
The energy radiating from these unpolished crystals completely disrupts my creative consciousness: in a singular, timeless flash, my identity is swallowed by the landscape. My ego recedes as my entire being mutates into the vast, heavy topography of the African terrain. For me, this work is a surreal collapse of scale—a moment where the portrait of my face expands into the portrait of an ancient earth.
