Original artwork description:

Incense by Igor Galan is a monumental portrait of a woman, whose face is both intimately rendered and dreamily abstracted. Measuring 220x195 cm, this oil painting offers a profound meditation on transformation, identity, and feminine inner life. The title invites an immediate association with ritual and transcendence – incense as a sensory bridge between the material and spiritual, and the face we see as a carrier of that same liminal power.

Her eyes, realistically painted with stunning emotional depth, gaze outward – searching, perhaps confronting. Around them, the contours of her face dissolve into swirling ribbons of color, like smoke caught in the wind. Shades of ultramarine, carmine, peach, and turquoise move across the canvas, creating a rhythm that mimics both breath and fire. She is simultaneously forming and evaporating.

This is not just a portrait, but a psychological landscape. It captures what is often invisible – the layers of consciousness, memory, and sensation that define us. Galan invites us to stand at the edge of clarity and blur, of reality and interpretation.

A must-have for collectors seeking large-scale contemporary figurative works, especially those that challenge traditional depictions of women and explore the symbolic terrain of emotion, memory, and identity.

Materials used:

Oil

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