Created on raw unstretched linen using acrylic, charcoal, pastel, and oil, this painting emerged during an intense two-day workshop in Paris.

Built through layered marks, broken textures, and mixed media experimentation, the portrait slowly surfaced from chaos rather than from a traditional academic process. While developing the work live, the figure unexpectedly began echoing the atmosphere of Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring — particularly through the softness and directness of the gaze.

Rather than fully resolving the painting, I intentionally chose to preserve the raw structure beneath: exposed linen, construction lines, and unfinished passages remain visible alongside areas of fully rendered oil paint.

The work sits inside a question many artists eventually face: when does a painting become more powerful? When everything is fully resolved and perfected — or when parts of it remain raw, vulnerable, and visibly human?

This painting was left precisely in that space.

Painted Oil and charcoal on unstretched linen, 80×70 cm