Shaped, Not Shown

Shaped, Not Shown is a series of abstract mixed media paintings that explores how identity is formed through social shaping and partial concealment.

Each work begins with vivid, saturated color fields that carry impulse, energy and intensity. These layers are not erased, but deliberately overlaid with muted or neutral surfaces. What remains visible are fragments, traces of what was there first. The paintings do not conceal color completely. They regulate its visibility.

This process reflects a common social experience: individuality is not removed, but filtered. Expression is adjusted, softened, or restrained through norms, expectations, and learned behavior, and at times through pressure or force, not only through adaptation. The black splatters in the foreground point to enforced adjustment and moments where adaptation is not voluntary.