AT THE AXIS OF ME
Fixed, frontal close‑up held like a ritual: a mirrored face coalesces along a central seam, hypnotic and exact. The moment two selves decide to become one.
A face becomes a totem: bilaterally mirrored, part mask, part butterfly. Flesh is modeled by warm/cool temperatures—Venetian colorito in a contemporary register—while the central axis reads like a Rorschach, an image that flips between two and one. The result is hypnotic alignment: a psyche coming into register with itself.
Year: 2023
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 30×40 cm (12×16 in)
Built on the artist’s Venetian Chromatic Realism, At the Axis of Me turns the portrait into a symmetrical device. Pearly half-tones and orchestrated edges (a Sargent/Sorolla intelligence) sculpt cheeks and mouth; the midline tightens into crisp seams so the eye rides the axis—eye → philtrum → lips—before circling the mirrored halves. Conceptually it sits with Dalí’s paranoiac-critical doubles and Magritte’s image-as-mask, yet remains grounded in high craft (Velázquez/Sargent lineage). The coral field iconizes the head; viridian and citron temperatures replace local color to carry form and mood. Emotionally, it’s integration after fracture—two selves meeting, deciding to become one.
Painting Style
Chromatic realism: form articulated by temperature; poise built on a central line that organizes the composition without rigid symmetry.
Brushwork
Satin blends along the midline; edges dissolve at jaw/temple and tighten at lip/nostril to lock the axis.
Kinship & Positioning
Venetian–Baroque colorito for flesh built by warm/cool temperatures.
Minimalist/modernist cinema for the shot-as-threshold architecture.
El Greco (spiritual tilt), Titian/Veronese → Velázquez (color-driven modeling).
Sargent (lost-and-found edges).
Cinematic DNA
Director echoes: Bergman’s confrontational close-ups; Antonioni’s architectural color fields.
Shot type: Fixed, frontal close-up with strict bilateral symmetry.
Blocking: Mirrored features form a central mask/butterfly along the midline; head isolated on a coral field; slight crop tightens the axis.
Focal pull: Along the seam—third‑eye shape → philtrum notch → parted lips; secondary micro-pulls out to each eye, then back to center.
Color grade: Coral ground with viridian/teal cools and citron accents; pearly half‑tones in cheeks and mouth.
Gesture/beat: Integration after fracture—alignment, metamorphosis, hypnosis.
Conceptual kin: Dalí’s paranoiac doubles, Magritte’s mask-logics.
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