FACIES

About this series

The «FACIES» series by Maurizio Valch explores contemporary abstract face painting. These works, realized in acrylic and oil on canvas, present structural art of fragmented faces, where identity emerges as an evolving surface – a visual coexistence of forms, gazes, and silences.

Maurizio Valch's «FACIES» series delves into the face as a composite, divided, and changing surface, moving away from conventional representation. Through contemporary abstract face painting, the artist explores identity not as a stable unit, but as a visual coexistence of fragments, gestures, gazes, and zones of silence. These works, executed in acrylic and oil on canvas, are characterized by their abstract and structural language, where the surface is built through layers of color, scrapings, and incisions, revealing paintings with material surface and stratified texture.

Valch investigates how an identity can sustain diverse forms without resolving into a single definitive manifestation, maintaining the tension between face and mask, fragmentation and belonging. Structural elements such as dividing lines, visual art with monolithic forms, and superimposed planes are key in these pieces, which are an example of contemporary art with color fields and spatial divisions.

«FACIES» invites a sober contemplation of the visible surface, which contains, conceals, and transforms identity. The series moves away from interpretations that reduce faces to studies of expression, fostering an approach that prioritizes the observation of the composition and materiality of the work. Each piece stands as a territory where matter and space are organized to unveil a visual order, allowing identity to remain ambiguous, plural, and open.