YouTuber V (self-portrait) 2026 – 40 x 40cm, acrylic, pencil on canvas
YouTuber V (self-portrait) 2026 is the most condensed, almost suffocating painting in the series, a square canvas that compresses the entire creator–consumer loop into a single, relentless field of pressure. The dominant head fills nearly the whole 40 × 40 cm surface, pushing against all four edges as if trying to break out of the frame. The face is monumental yet intimately close: eyes narrowed and intense, mouth open in mid-sentence or mid-breath, beard and hair exploding outward in thick, dragged impasto that merges with the surrounding storm.
The paint handling is ferocious, black, grey, bruised ochre, and corrosive green intrusions that now feel less like highlights and more like infection or screen bleed. Layers are built, scraped, rebuilt; the surface is a topography of craters, ridges, and residue, with vertical drags running down the face like slow tears or digital artifacts.
The bottom right corner of the painting contains a small inset within which a figure can be seen, almost swallowed by the dominant head’s shadow. The miniature head, is trapped inside a loosely drawn rectangular frame that reads as screen, reaction box, or comment window. It mirrors the large head in posture and intensity but is reduced to a few desperate marks, compressed, powerless, yet still present. The painterly storm swirls across both heads, linking them: the noise, the comments, the algorithmic pressure, all of it connecting the broadcaster to the consumer.