Faceless 1993

Marlene Dumas made this print, Faceless, using washes of ink on paper. It's such a process-led work, a fluid dance of dark and light. There's a vulnerability laid bare. The figure is kneeling, draped with a cloth obscuring the face. The ink bleeds and pools, creating soft edges, and the dark blacks against the stark white of the paper lend a haunting quality. Look at how the figure is built up from pools of ink, stains that create a body, that suggest form. The two black dots, perhaps the only visible features of the face, feel so stark and unresolved. They are like erasures, yet they are the only way we can meet the image. Thinking about someone else, maybe Goya, who wasn’t afraid to delve into the darker aspects of the human condition, Dumas shares his willingness to confront uncomfortable truths. It’s this tension between the visible and the concealed that gives the piece its emotional weight, an invitation to reflect on identity, absence, and the stories we project onto blank canvases.