Double-Sided Drawings: Ghostly Graphite Illusions by Hernán Marín

Hernán Marín is a Colombian visual artist whose work tests what drawing can do when the support itself becomes part of the idea. His current body of work places graphite portraits and figures on frosted acrylic, and the material does something no paper could: it shifts depending on the point of view. From one side, a blurry figure smokes a cigar, his glasses sharply in focus in the foreground. Flip the panel over and both the glasses and cigar disappear, revealing the weary, bearded man’s face.

Each piece follows the same format, a sharp, carefully rendered drawing on one face and a softened, spectral echo on the other, the graphite diffusing through the translucent slab into something closer to a memory than a mark. Hernán treats empty space not as background but as subject. The fog surrounding his figures isn’t absence but atmosphere, giving scale and weight to the characters it holds. The acrylic’s thickness buries the image in depth, so presence and disappearance coexist within a single object.

For more of Hernán Marín’s fascinating work, explore his portfolio and follow him on Instagram.

More art on the grid via Instagram