Lumen & Umbra

I use chiaroscuro lighting that seems to emanate from within the subject. In this series, a single narrow beam catches figures in profile or three-quarter view. Deep blacks absorb most of the light, leaving faces and hands softly luminous. The resulting images feel close and vulnerable, expressions and gestures emerge quietly, as though something ancestral is surfacing through the present body. Every portrait functions as a miniature theatre of memory. These carefully staged tableaux borrow the dramatic intensity of Baroque painting while staying unmistakably contemporary and personal. What appears theatrical is in fact a way to reveal something un-staged: the past living inside the sitter, held in a hand, a gaze, a breath. Through these portraits, intimacy and staging work together to make visible how history continues to inhabit and quietly shape who we are.