This mixed media painting by Stephen Stocklin features a ghostly portrait rendered in washes of gray, white, and charcoal on a pale, atmospheric background. The face emerges from loose, fluid brushwork with simplified features—dark hollows for eyes, a suggested nose, and a single vivid red stroke marking the mouth. The head is topped with darker gray marks indicating hair, with drips and runs adding to the sense of dissolution. The entire image feels transient and ethereal, as if the figure is either forming from or fading into the misty field surrounding it.
The painting evokes the fragility of identity and presence—how we sometimes feel ourselves dissolving, becoming indistinct, with only essential features remaining visible. The bright red mouth suggests that even when everything else fades, the need to speak or be heard persists, a small insistence of vitality in the face of erasure, reminding us that our voice remains even when our outline blurs.
This mixed media painting by Stephen Stocklin features a ghostly portrait rendered in washes of gray, white, and charcoal on a pale, atmospheric background. The face emerges from loose, fluid brushwork with simplified features—dark hollows for eyes, a suggested nose, and a single vivid red stroke marking the mouth. The head is topped with darker gray marks indicating hair, with drips and runs adding to the sense of dissolution. The entire image feels transient and ethereal, as if the figure is either forming from or fading into the misty field surrounding it.
The painting evokes the fragility of identity and presence—how we sometimes feel ourselves dissolving, becoming indistinct, with only essential features remaining visible. The bright red mouth suggests that even when everything else fades, the need to speak or be heard persists, a small insistence of vitality in the face of erasure, reminding us that our voice remains even when our outline blurs.
