Trauma
1999 - Present
Description
A figure rendered in soft charcoal greys and warm sepia sits against a bare, warm beige ground, the head turned away to the right and tipped slightly down. One arm is drawn up across the chest in a single guarded movement, the shoulder lifted toward the jaw. Where the companion drawing closes the body into a full self-embrace, this one holds the gesture half-formed, caught before it completes.
Golden thread gathers around the head in dense loops, knotting over the brow and eye so that the face is largely withheld. A strand escapes toward the upper right and ends in a small tangle suspended in open space. A second line falls from the jaw down the sternum and unravels into a loose knot at the chest.
The work sets careful realism against something unruly. The figure is still; the thread is not. What the thread obscures is the face, and what it leaves visible is the posture, so the emotional weight is carried by the body rather than the expression. Signed lower left in two lines.
Preservation Notes
PROVISIONAL. Materials recorded from visual inspection of a digital image only. No physical examination has taken place. Awaiting confirmation from the artist. The organic reading is recorded above pending that confirmation. Supporting observations: granular deposit and edge smudging consistent with charcoal, and a gold line that varies in density where it overlaps, consistent with applied fiber. A competing reading should be noted for whoever confirms this. The ground is an unusually uniform greige with no visible paper tooth, and the tonal transitions are smoother than typical charcoal handling. These are also consistent with a digital work rendered in a charcoal style. Inspection has been inconclusive. Handling implication while undetermined: if the gold element is applied fiber it sits proud of the surface and the work must not be stacked, pressed, or surface-cleaned. Treat as physical and fragile until confirmed otherwise. Questions for the artist: physical or digital; if physical, the substrate and the gold medium; if digital, the authoring application and whether a signed print exists. Physical dimensions unknown. Source file 3210 x 4160 px. CORRECTION LOGGED 2026-09-09 This record previously carried a tag reading Trauma pair and a preservation note stating that its material assessment was carried over from a companion drawing sharing the same pair. Both were removed. The pairing was inferred from adjacent source filenames, not supplied by the artist or the archive, and has been confirmed as incorrect. The two works are unrelated. The material assessment above stands on its own observations of this work and is not derived from any other record. A tag reading self-embrace was also removed. It did not describe this work. In this drawing one hand rests near the shoulder and the other lies across the lower chest, which is not a self-embrace. The description on this record was written before this correction and should be re-read against the image before the record is relied upon.
Tags
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