Fragmentary youth statue. Digital, 2020.

One of my favorite pieces at the Met in NYC is Fragmentary colossal head of a youth. It's roughly 2 feet tall and 1.5 feet wide. On my first visit to the Met in 2018, it stopped me right in my tracks and immediately drew me in.

While it conveys serenity and youthfulness, the crack is a stark reminder of the violent passage of time. Nothing lasts forever: everything eventually breaks down or breaks open. And yet, this statue–even if just a fragment of what it once was–has survived. Someone carved this over 2000 years ago, and it somehow found its way to a museum in New York City for me to behold.

At some point after that day at the Met, I drew it in my sketchbook (below). I only got as far as the outline before moving on to other things.

In 2020 I began learning how to paint digitally, and when I saw my sketch I decided to finish what I had started. So I scanned the drawing and ‘painted’ over it using my Wacom tablet. This was my first ever digital painting.