The Sleepers II

I always come back to painting bodies lying down. I’m interested in sleep, exhaustion, and my strange relationship with sleeping badly. I’ve always been drawn to that moment when the body gives in. Maybe also because skin, flesh, and gestures begin to fall under the weight of gravity.

These pieces are not really about people sleeping. They are more about someone worn out, paused, or simply trying to disconnect for a moment.

There’s something that especially interests me in these images: the contradiction of bodies that appear still yet remain under tension, bodies that keep ruminating even when they seem to be doing nothing at all. I suppose it has a lot to do with living in a time shaped by anxiety, exhaustion, and that very contemporary feeling of trying to do everything at once: work, produce, care for others, and keep functioning.

While painting them, I wanted to return to very simple things: the weight of the body, skin, light, and stillness.

There is also a difference compared to the first series. I approached each piece through a different atmosphere, exploring distinct colour palettes and introducing acrylic markers as a way to structure the image further. Little by little, my painting is becoming more graphic and more constructed.

There are only seven pieces.