BORDO
// dEEP - THE CONCEPTUAL PROJECT.
Series of eight paintings, acrylic on canvas (50 × 70 cm)
The "Falls – ORIGIN" series explores, through a coherent and powerful visual sequence, the theme of falling as a definitive and transformative experience. But beyond that, the fall takes on the role of an original metaphor for existence itself. We are born falling backwards, unaware of when the impact will come: we live, in essence, in a continuous fall, never knowing how far we are from the ground – from death.
The first seven works depict human figures placed at the bottom edge of the canvas: lifeless bodies, captured at the end of their descent. Each painting portrays a cadaver – or more precisely, an emptied corporeal shell – in one of seven variations. The silhouettes are enclosed by a thick black outline, emphasizing their sharp separation from the background and, symbolically, from life itself.
The bodies, filled with a dense layer of white acrylic, appear shriveled and hollowed out: no longer vessels of presence, but opaque husks returned to silence. The flesh-toned background – an epidermal hue, subtle yet pervasive – invades what remains of the scene, suggesting a displacement of essence: what was once inside is now elsewhere, dispersed. The heads, blackened and charred, resemble spent matchsticks, evoking the idea of consumption – the part most strained and worn during the fall. The pictorial gesture, rendered in long vertical brushstrokes, reinforces the impression of a downward motion, while around the figures, life – suggested by the background – continues to flow.
The eighth canvas introduces a reversal of the visual narrative. The human figure now appears at the top of the composition, caught mid-fall, shown from behind. This is the point of origin, where life enters matter. Inside the body, a dense, rosy hue echoes the backgrounds of the previous works, but here it is charged with vitality: the body is still inhabited, still alive. Once again, a bold black outline separates the figure from the background, which, by contrast, is rendered in white acrylic. The same vertical strokes suggest thematic and visual continuity, tracing the trajectory of the fall.
"Falls – ORIGIN" stands as a meditation on loss, emptiness, and return: a figurative cycle in which painterly matter becomes flesh, and flesh – inevitably – returns to matter. Life is a fall: a descent toward an impact we cannot see, but know to be imminent.
BACKWARD WE ARE CAST,
UNAWARE HOW MUCH WE HAVE LEFT.
BLAZE OF SEPARATION;
EMPTY BODIES, SCORCHED HEADS.
AND JUST AS WE ONCE WERE NOT,
WE ARE NO LONGER THERE.
// dEEP - THE CONCEPTUAL PROJECT.
Series of paintings, mixed media on canvas (60 × 80 cm)
Following the trajectory initiated by "Falls – ORIGIN", this second series deepens the exploration of the fall not as a passage, but as aftermath. Where the first cycle focused on the act of descent and the spatial tension of bodies relegated to the lower edge of the canvas, "Falls – REMAINS" brings the corpse to the foreground—both literally and conceptually.
Here, the human figure expands to occupy almost the entire surface of the canvas. The fall is no longer an abstract motion, but a resolved event: what is left is the body, now inert, exposed, and studied in its silent aftermath. The pictorial focus shifts to the cadaver as object—no longer the subject of action, but the residue of experience.
The figures are outlined in bold black strokes, yet these contours are more gestural than precise, suggesting the fragility of the boundary between presence and absence. Along the edges, streaks of red emerge—subtle yet deliberate—evoking violence, trauma, or rupture. This chromatic accent, absent in the previous series, introduces a new emotional charge: not only has the fall occurred, but it has wounded.
The heads, once again, are rendered in deep black, like burnt remnants—emphasizing the part of the body most strained, worn, and consumed during the fall, during life itself.
The internal matter of the bodies is no longer rendered in flat acrylic, but through a textured, impasto medium—thick, irregular, and at times nearly translucent. The flesh appears emptied, collapsed, as though the body has been turned inside out, reduced to a vacant membrane. This material presence heightens the sense of tactile decay: the figure becomes a shell, a skin without content.
The background retains its epidermal hue, yet now shifts toward a more saturated, darker flesh tone. As in "Falls – ORIGIN", long vertical brushstrokes dominate, echoing the movement of falling—but this time, the fall has already taken place. The downward motion continues to haunt the composition, like an echo within the silence of what remains.
"Falls – REMAINS" is a study in aftermath: a visual anatomy of void and violence. Where the previous series marked the trajectory of life descending into matter, this chapter lingers on the residual form—what is left once life has left. Together, these works advance the broader experimentation of Falls: a meditation on impermanence, impact, and the persistent presence of absence.