"What Lies Beneath" is a self-portrait. There is passion and fight underneath the quiet stillness. The overly red cheek is a flush of blood and life demanding to be seen. The many colors used for skin tone suggest the complexity and dynamism of identity and the struggle to be seen. At the same time, there is a bit of a challenge in the stare- "Stand back". We are ever changing. Pushing people away, bringing them closer. Wanting both of those things.
The process of reflection is not comfortable nor clear. There is difficulty in finding and knowing what is real and true. We may amplify things that are good because we wish them to be there. We may distort things because we are too punishing or severe. We are always changing, too. So what was true then may not be true now.
This work is more realistic than work in my recent years, but still reflects my tendency towards abstraction with the breakdown of the skin into dramatic color fields. This is meant to be real as in representing a real person, but also not real, just sections of color next to each other. When you look close enough, it all breaks down to abstraction again.
