About
The hand, the charcoal, the surface
DIRX / Studio, 2024 Artist Statement
I work with charcoal through an interest in surface, structure, and fragment. My images originate from observation but intentionally move away from direct recognition. By zooming in and intensifying detail, what is visible shifts toward something less defined.
The work moves between sharpness and softness, between presence and disappearance. What is shown is never complete — the rest is left to the viewer.
My work begins with drawing from observation, but does not end there. By enlarging fragments and isolating details, I aim to reach a point where an image loses its immediate readability.
What initially appears as a concrete object — a form, a structure — gradually becomes ambiguous. The image balances between multiple interpretations: organic and artificial, natural and constructed, recognizable and estranged.
Charcoal is not a neutral medium for me. It leaves traces, can be built up and erased, and forces decisions about what remains visible and what disappears.
I search for images that are not immediately understood, but that continue to resonate. Images that only fully emerge through the act of looking.
Through fragmentation and detail, I aim to undermine recognition. What is visible offers just enough structure to hold onto, while simultaneously losing fixed meaning.
My work explores the tension in which an image remains present without fully revealing itself.
The Medium
Charcoal is not a neutral medium. It leaves traces, can be built up and erased, and forces decisions about what remains visible and what disappears.
Working in charcoal, DIRX constructs images that dissolve through detail. Detail is not used to clarify, but to destabilize. As surfaces are examined more closely, structure starts to fragment and the image loses its fixed identity.
Charcoal plays a crucial role in this process. It allows for both precision and erasure, enabling a continuous negotiation between control and disintegration.
Process
From Observation
to Fragmentation
Each work begins with careful observation — studying surfaces, textures, and structures found in the world. Through enlargement and isolation, these observations are transformed into images that hover between recognition and abstraction, revealing new readings with every encounter.