Cartography of a Face

We each carry our own world, and the body is where it lives. The face most of all: it's a map of a person's inner world, and it grows more intricate every year. Wrinkles run parallel from the eyes, cascade down the cheeks, cross and merge at the neck — a grid of paths and directions drawn slowly by a whole life.

But it's a map that can never be finished, because it keeps changing. When I paint a face, I catch only one moment of it.

This old man rests his head on his hands, as if the weight of his thoughts needs holding up. He's lost somewhere deep. I returned to the painting again and again across years — adding, changing, the surface building up rugged and profound, the way the face itself was made.

An original oil in blue. Signed.

Jolanta