Engulfed

Figurative painter Uldalen explores a dark, shrouded atmosphere with ‘Engulfed’, revelling in a zone between desire and resistance that finds beauty in a dreamlike state clouded by shadow. Uldalen focuses on expression and coded reference over realistic depiction — though the results often fall within that category as the artist meditates on classic renaissance figural work. Such heavy use of black recalls the dramatically lit figural reliefs of Caravaggio blurred in motion, the movement suggested in the painting a static capture of violence or exposure as a form recoils or opens itself, whilst a hand reaches out or balls itself into a fist.