Poly
During my residency at Schenkhaus Zurich, I created 100 Ugly Portraits. Each portrait begins with a moment of pause. Before paint touches the canvas, I turn my attention inward — towards sensations, tensions, emotions, or thoughts that are already present. The paintings emerge from this act of noticing. Some portraits are inspired by people from my surroundings, while others grow from memories, inner images, or fleeting states of being.
I am interested in what resists clear categorisation. The Ugly Portraits move between familiarity and strangeness, attraction and repulsion, beauty and ugliness. They are an invitation to linger with ambiguity rather than resolve it.
The works presented here were created over the course of three months as part of my artistic exploration of the exhibition theme POLY– and the question of how multiplicity, contradiction, and perception can take shape through painting.
