Valeska Soares’ Doubleface Portraits

New York-based artist Valeska Soares has a multifaceted creative practice, working in whichever medium she decides fits best to her concept. In her latest collection, ‘Doubleface’, she has altered a series of 19th and 20th-century portraits to abstract and reveal the face of the sitter.

The series began accidentally, after being gifted a portrait of her mother, Soares started to collect paintings from the 1800s and 1900s of women unknown to her. To create her ‘Doubleface’ portraits, the Brazilian artist has restretched these collected canvases so that their unpainted backs are prominent. The reverse side has been painted in a block-color drawn from the palette of the original oil painting—rich golden hues, dark reds, and teal all feature in the collection. Abstract parts of the original portraits are then revealed by cutting and folding down sections of the canvas.

All images © Valeska Soares