THE BOARDER
This graphic work is based on a fragment of the classic engraving ‘The Fall of Icarus’ by Bernard Picart (1731), but with a contemporary approach that explores the key moment when Icarus begins his inevitable descent.
The reinterpretation focuses on his face at the very moment when he realises that there is no going back: he has lost the feathers that allowed him to fly and his fate is sealed. Icarus’ face is transformed into a landscape in which the physical limits of his head, engulfed in flames, mark the impassable border between desire and reality. This boundary symbolises the tension between what one can imagine or aspire to and the harsh limits of the real world. The work reflects on human nature, which constantly seeks to cross these boundaries, and the consequences of doing so.
This work invites the viewer to consider the eternal struggle between human aspiration and the limits of reality, a blurred line that we all face at some point, just as Icarus did.
76 x 92 cm.