50 / 50 cm

Acrylic, fluorescent acrylic, luminescent acrylic 

Valera and His Girlfriend. Relationship Developing continues the fictional narrative of Valera Somewhere, shifting the story away from the spectacle of Amsterdam’s Red Light District into a more intimate and ambiguous stage of attachment. The saturated red tones of the previous work are replaced here by a dense green background, removing the direct association with nightlife and relocating the relationship into a more psychological, unstable, and suspended space.

Valera appears transformed. No longer overwhelmed by infatuation, he is depicted as composed and self-aware — dressed in a tuxedo with a bow tie, embodying an almost performative seriousness. The exaggerated emotional openness of the earlier work gives way to restraint and constructed masculinity. Standing beside him is a fully nude female body without a head, stripped of individual identity and functioning less as a portrait than as a symbolic presence within the composition.

The absence of the figure’s head creates a tension between intimacy and objectification, tenderness and projection. Rather than presenting a conventional romantic image, the work stages a theatrical relationship dynamic in which desire, status, fantasy, and emotional dependency coexist inside a deliberately artificial visual language.

As in the other works from the series, the painting transforms under different lighting conditions through the use of fluorescent and luminescent paint. Ultraviolet light reveals hidden layers and colour shifts, while in darkness the work continues to emit a residual glow, allowing the image to persist beyond direct visibility — almost like an emotional afterimage.

The handcrafted ash wood frame, integrated with ultraviolet lighting, functions as part of the artwork’s architecture rather than as an external border. Designed both for wall display and floor placement, the object occupies a space between painting, installation, and personal shrine, continuing the artist’s exploration of memory, urban mythology, and the imagined emotional life of a pigeon named Valera.

SOLD