Black, Something - face

Faces, Unfamiliar

Faces, difficult to pin down by age, densely emerge on the canvas—my series of faces created over the past few years. This series draws inspiration from Lee Sang’s poem Ogamdo, particularly The Thirteen Children. The poem describes thirteen children racing through an alley, though Lee Sang remarks that there’s no need to rush. The foundational imagery for these faces dates back over a decade to Sunjiang, an art district near Beijing, China. While living and working at a printmaking studio there, I produced a single print, and the figure from that work became the blueprint for the current series.

Expressionless and hollow, their eyes stare directly forward. They do not race. While I might call them self-portraits, they bear no resemblance to me. Or perhaps they do—who’s to say? As the paint accumulates in a sculptural relief-like texture, I sand the surface to achieve a flat plane. With black conté, I loosely sketch the placement of eyes, nose, and mouth. Over this, I layer white oil paint, blending it to create a peculiar grayish skin tone as the conté powder mixes in. Using a 4B pencil, I slowly outline and refine the smudged features into simple lines.

I once saw Modigliani’s marble portrait sculpture, its distinctive elongated face carved with rough, chisel-hewn marks—likely of his wife, Jeanne. Its calm symmetry, slightly twisted, captivated me. Similarly, I admire Brancusi’s bronze sculptures, where a few simple lines carve ovoid faces into elegant forms. And what of the serene countenance of the Buddha in the Seokguram Grotto of Mount Toham, crafted by Kim Dae-seong?

I hope these faces—modulated and melted—seep into the canvas, forming ageless, haunting eyes that carry the essence of all these influences.