“Anonymous protagonists of unwritten histories, revealed, hidden and inscrutable through the memory of the skin.”

In Anonymous, portraiture shifts from familiarity towards the unknown and a greater degree of uncertainty. The subjects are people encountered during a journey through India and Nepal, faces whose stories remain largely unknown to me. Drawings, photographs, notes and recordings serve as partial records of these encounters. I allow this material to settle alongside my memories of the experience before returning to it. The portrait thus emerges after a period of distance, through a slow process that seeks to work with what remains of each person’s presence rather than reconstruct their identity or disclose their intimacy.

Paper participates in this same temporality. Its folds, wrinkles and accidents become part of the construction of the image. Charcoal is deposited, rubbed or left suspended along the paper’s edges and folds, while the shadows cast by the relief itself extend the drawing. Light then becomes an active element, bringing features into view and transforming the image into a physical presence approaching bas-relief.