Stranger Portraits
This series explores the psychological tension between the familiar and the stranger through figurative paintings based on photographs I have made in public spaces. Using acrylic on canvas or board, I contemplate the fleeting gestures of people in city and suburban environments. The paintings are a meditation on both intimacy and distance.
At a moment when public life is increasingly shaped by surveillance, self-curation, and filtered visibility, these quiet, attentive acts of looking become especially vital. Developing this body of work now feels urgent, as it asks how individuals are seen within spaces where observation is constant, and privacy is negotiated rather than assumed. By slowing the act of looking, I consider what it means to witness another person outside systems of monitoring and spectacle. How might we recognize one another more fully when attention is deliberate yet anonymous?