The Liminal Veil

My body of work functions as a mirror, creating a space where the act of looking becomes reciprocal. The faces that emerge from the canvases are not portraits in the traditional sense—they are thresholds between interior states and external perception.  By working with the figure as a permeable form, I aim to invite an encounter that is less about recognition and more about resonance.

Color operates as the primary language in this exchange. The deep purples, blues, and reds that dominate my palette are not descriptive but evocative—they function as emotional frequencies rather than representations of light or skin. These chromatic choices create an atmospheric charge that precedes intellectual understanding. When a face emerges from a field of violet, or a hand glows pink against darkness, the color itself becomes a feeling you inhabit before you fully comprehend the image. This is intentional: I want the emotional impact to arrive before the rational mind intercepts it.

The mirror metaphor also extends beyond reflection. Like looking into an actual mirror, the paintings present something familiar yet strange, intimate yet distanced. The figures hover between clarity and dissolution, their features sometimes sharp, sometimes bleeding into the surrounding color field. This instability mirrors the fluid nature of how we understand ourselves—never fixed, always shifting depending on the moment, the mood, the quality of light. The smeared, gestural quality of the paint reinforces this sense of psychological flux. Nothing is entirely solid; everything threatens to dissolve or reform.

The surface of the painting, with its visible brushwork and layered applications, refuses to disappear into illusion. You're always aware you're looking at paint on canvas, which paradoxically makes the emotional content more direct. There's no trick, no photographic verisimilitude to hide behind—just color, gesture, and the human compulsion to find meaning in faces. This rawness in the material handling echoes the psychological rawness the work explores.
 

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-- Sabrina Mansouri 2025