Ephemera

Digital, Procreate on iPad, 2022

This piece was meant as an illustration of the concept of pareidolia - our tendency to see things that are not really there, to impose meaning onto ambiguous information. Flames, clouds, and wallpaper patterns are fair ground for this phenomenon - as is smoke.

In my drawing, I tried to capture the insubstantial nature and the movement of smoke. By suggesting forms without fully defining them, I wanted to leave space for the viewer to see what's not explicitly there. I worked with vague and fluid lines and layers of opacity to describe a substance constantly shifting and never truly solid, existing somewhere between presence and absence.

Only in hindsight did I realize that the fact that this piece has been created digitally and, as of now, does not exist in any substantial form, adds another layer to its illusory character.