The Dreamer While traditional painting records the presence of a subject, my work moves in the opposite direction, toward 'extinction' through representation. It captures the chilly, paradoxically fading moments of a subject as it is being painted. My obsession with this extinction stems from the belief that portraying a true individual is impossible in an era where identity wavers ambiguously between reality and illusion. The visual layers of brushstrokes and drawing piled onto the canvas do not reveal; rather, the more they express, the deeper they conceal and dissolve the inner substance of the subject beneath. The taut threads or white spheres crossing the figure's face are painterly devices designed to maximize this concealment, disrupting the gaze and causing it to slip away from the hidden essence. As the formal, plastic surface becomes more defined, the presence behind it is paradoxically erased into a deeper, colder abyss.…