CLEARANCE 2026 Mixed media on wood panel 30 × 40 × 2 in
Clearance explores how visibility is controlled rather than freely given.
Human faces appear from a surface made of degraded currency—material that has lost its economic function but still carries the visual language of authority. These faces are not deliberately drawn; they emerge through erosion, as if identity is something formed after the system acts, not before.
At the center, a dense vertical structure interrupts the image. It resembles a barcode or scanning device, but instead of revealing information, it blocks and filters it. This element suggests a system that decides what can be seen, when, and how clearly. Visibility here is unstable—partial, delayed, or denied.
Around this central axis, the image begins to break apart. Edges dissolve into fragments, reinforcing the idea that identity cannot fully settle within the structures that produce it. The figures are present, but not fully defined—recognized, yet never secure.
As the opening work in Portraits of Invisible Power, Clearance establishes the core condition of the series: visibility is not a right, but something regulated—granted, withheld, and shaped by systems beyond individual control.