Painting series · 2014–2020

Unfinished Fantasies

“Unfinished Fantasies” emerges from the transformation of sexually explicit imagery. In this series, I superimpose photographs of group sex, allowing bodies to move beyond their original boundaries and become new forms. The resulting image moves away from its source and acquires an independent identity—a spectral world in which bodies are simultaneously present, dissolving, and continuing through other shapes.

What draws me to these images is the possibility of transforming their visual language and meaning through painting. Images commonly regarded as obscene become the raw material for creating another image. Through layering, repetition, and transparency, the explicitness of the original scene gives way to relationships that can no longer be easily disentangled. One body conceals another while becoming part of a new form, as though nakedness were creating its own covering.

In organising these forms, I consciously draw on the compositional structures of classical painting, particularly the Baroque. Intertwined figures, movement, and composition bring the source images into a new order. For me, this process is a kind of birth: just as sexual union can bring into being a person with an independent existence, the new image emerges from its source, yet its meaning is no longer confined to that origin.

The spectral space of these paintings takes shape through forms passing through one another. A shape may be recognisable for a moment, then change as it extends into another. Sustained looking reveals figures and relationships that were not apparent at first. “Unfinished” refers to this open-ended experience of seeing: the painting is complete, but the image continues to take shape in the viewer’s gaze.