2025. Oil pastel on paper. 12 × 18 in. (30.5 × 45.7 cm)
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In Young Man in Wreath, the main drama isn’t narrative, it’s pressure. The drawing is split into two fields: the body, slow and solid; the wreath, fast and exploding. The torso is built with layered pastel, where green sits in the skin like an afterimage and reds trace the edges as heat. Anatomy is clear, chest, shoulders, abdomen, but the color refuses realism, which makes the figure feel less like a posed model and more like a remembered sensation.

The face is present but withheld. The head turns down, eyes lowered, and the right side of the face catches warmer tones while the left dissolves into darker shadow. That choice keeps the work intimate. The viewer is close enough to see, but not invited to “take” the subject. It’s a portrait that protects itself.

Then the wreath arrives as both crown and interruption. Roses and clustered blooms are suggested through spirals, quick loops, and jagged strokes rather than careful botanical description. The flowers spill outward, especially to the left, turning the top of the image into a restless halo. A pale bloom near the temple reads like glare or static, an area where the pastel is worked hard enough to spark.

Compositionally, it’s direct: the wreath claims space, the body absorbs it. The background stays dark, with a warmer zone on the right that pushes the figure forward and gives the skin a faint glow. The contrast makes the body feel heavy and the wreath almost weightless, like noise above a held breath.

In a queer context, the image carries a familiar tension: visibility and disguise. Ornament becomes armor; beauty becomes a way to be seen on one’s own terms. The result is sensual without being performative, desire expressed through attention, not display.