Oil on board | 35×35cm | 2024
Original oil painting by Santi Pina
How beautiful it was is a haunting self-portrait, not of the artist alone, but of a moment, fractured and preserved. Set against a black void, the painting shows the artist in profile, caught in the act of kissing a woman whose face has been violently destroyed. Her features are not only blurred or obscured; the very surface of the painting is torn, lifted, and ruptured, as if the memory itself could no longer hold.
This contrast between gesture and material, between the soft act of a kiss and the brutal state of decay, is the heart of the piece. The kiss becomes an act of mourning, an attempt to preserve something already lost. It is both intimate and unbearable. The more you look, the more it feels like an image that shouldn’t exist: too late, too broken, too honest.
The black background isolates the figures, turning the composition into a monument of disappearance. It asks: what do we do with beauty that can no longer be touched? What remains of love, when its face is gone?
Details:
Title: How beautiful it was
Medium: Oil on board
Style: Figurative, contemporary realism
Year: 2024
Dimensions: 35×35 cm
Signed by the artist
Includes certificate of authenticity
Worldwide shipping available
Oil on board | 35×35cm | 2024
Original oil painting by Santi Pina
How beautiful it was is a haunting self-portrait, not of the artist alone, but of a moment, fractured and preserved. Set against a black void, the painting shows the artist in profile, caught in the act of kissing a woman whose face has been violently destroyed. Her features are not only blurred or obscured; the very surface of the painting is torn, lifted, and ruptured, as if the memory itself could no longer hold.
This contrast between gesture and material, between the soft act of a kiss and the brutal state of decay, is the heart of the piece. The kiss becomes an act of mourning, an attempt to preserve something already lost. It is both intimate and unbearable. The more you look, the more it feels like an image that shouldn’t exist: too late, too broken, too honest.
The black background isolates the figures, turning the composition into a monument of disappearance. It asks: what do we do with beauty that can no longer be touched? What remains of love, when its face is gone?
Details:
Title: How beautiful it was
Medium: Oil on board
Style: Figurative, contemporary realism
Year: 2024
Dimensions: 35×35 cm
Signed by the artist
Includes certificate of authenticity
Worldwide shipping available
