M. BIDHAN

A portrait of Mr. Bidhan, photographed in 2016 by Zani Erberto and discovered in January 2024 in PHOTO magazine, reveals a Bengali man burned with acid, a common form of violence in Bangladesh and India. In 2002, the country introduced the death penalty to curb these attacks. Inspired by this photograph, the artwork pays homage to the rejected victims, held responsible for their appearance and condemned to obscurity. The face does not elicit pity. In this gaze, there is neither sadness nor anger, but a raw resilience, an upright dignity. Gesso, coffee, acrylic, and inks, applied with a palette knife, scar the surface, evoking scars and etching the stigmata. The canvas confronts the horror, lacerates it, then covers it with light. It establishes the connection between the witnessing visitor and the survivor. Eighteen months later, bare skin seems to have been banished from the painter's representations. Is it an echo of the psoriasis he suffers from, or a desire to seek, beneath the skin, the flesh and, beneath the form, the being enclosed in its envelope?