Silent Series: Silent Vigil

"Silent Vigil" portrays the bald eagle in a state of watchful stillness, its piercing gaze embodying both strength and solitude. The raw energy of charcoal enhances the bird’s commanding presence, reflecting resilience and guardianship. As part of the Eagle Portraits series, this work explores the quiet yet unyielding spirit of nature’s most iconic raptor.

Art Technique: Expressive charcoal drawing using layering, shading, and blending to capture tonal depth. Strong contrasts between light and shadow to emphasize form and texture. Fine detailing in feathers combined with gestural strokes to highlight the intensity of gaze.

Medium/Material: Charcoal on Winsor & Newton acid-free 220gsm paper.

Production Year: 2025.

Artist Statement:

In my charcoal work, I seek to investigate form through light and absence. Shadows are not just the lack of light but active presences—brooding, shaping, defining. Charcoal offers me a vocabulary of both control and spontaneity. I use vine charcoal for initial gestural lines, then compressed charcoal to build up dense layers and dramatic blacks. I exploit smudging and erasure to reveal, hide, and distort. The paper surface plays a critical role—its texture becomes part of the composition; tooth, weight, and grain all influence how charcoal responds. I intend to make the viewer’s eye move across expanses of value, noticing the shifts between deep blacks, mid-tones, and glimmers of untouched paper. My work aspires to invite reflection: on what is absent as much as what is present; to challenge our expectations of clarity, of edges; to allow space for ambiguity. I want the viewer to linger in the in-between: between light and dark, clarity and blur, seen and unseen.