Pensive Man in a Straw Hat

In this portrait, Vincent van Gogh’s *Self-Portrait with a Straw Hat (obverse: The Potato Peeler)* serves as both spark and origin. I wanted to carry over not only the summer palette and the sweeping, unrestrained brushstrokes that seem to follow the form rather than simply cover it, but also the pensive gaze, the faint melancholy, and the sense of a body slightly withdrawn from the surrounding noise and movement.

Beneath this painting lies an earlier, unsuccessful attempt—a reworked image that never quite resolved itself. I like feeling its presence under the surface, this “error” that, much like in the spirit of kintsugi, becomes not a defect but a unique trace of the process, a fracture that quietly enriches the life of the portrait.