Don't Look at Me (2025) Original Charcoal Drawing by laleliyegidentramvay

The title is what she is saying, and the drawing does not let you obey it. She has just come up out of the water, hair flattened to her skull, water still running down her face, and she has turned to find someone there. The whole thing rests on that half second before a person composes themselves.

I wanted the moment we all know and never photograph. Being seen wet is being seen without any of the arrangements we make for other people. No styling, no posture, nothing held in place. The eyes are wide because she has been caught, not because she is performing anything. And the paradox is the point: a work that asks not to be looked at, hung on a wall, is nothing but an invitation to look. I am interested in that discomfort. You are doing the thing she is asking you not to do, and you keep doing it.

Charcoal on special textured paper was the only material for this. Charcoal is dust before it is an image, and it gives you a blackness nothing else gives, so I could push the hair and the water surface almost to nothing and then lift the highlights back out for every bead on her shoulder and every wet track down her cheek. Building it in grey alone strips out anything decorative. Skin, water, light, and an expression. Colour would have softened it and softening it would have been a lie.

Up close you can see it is dust on paper. From a few steps back it is a person looking at you. What I hope for is that the viewer holds her gaze slightly longer than is comfortable, and then feels why.

Materials used:

charcoal

Details:

• Charcoal drawing on Paper
• One of a kind artwork
• Size: 53 x 94 x 3cm (framed)
• Framed and ready to hang
• Signed on the front
• Style: Photorealistic
• Subject: People and portraits