When It's Over I Want To Know Who I Was (1-2)

Schmincke oils on canvas. Size: 40 x 50 cm, Anton Terziev, 2024
From No Time For Losers seriеs (2019-)

Photo: © the artist
Courtesy the artist

(Foto material used: Charles Oliveira by Chris Unger/ Zuffa LLC after UFC 274, 2022)

It's Over I Want To Know Who I Was (1-2) detail

Anton Terziev’s When It’s Over I Want To Know Who I Was (1-2) offers an electrifying snapshot of triumph caught between elation and rupture. In this close-cropped study, thick impasto in sanguine and molten amber sculpts every taut muscle and clenched jaw, as the fighter’s roar seems to fracture the canvas itself. The extreme proximity and lush texture amplify society’s hunger for aggression and spectacle, while the raw, almost fractured brushwork speaks to the corrosive weight of expectation and the ever-present dread of defeat. As part of the No Time For Losers series, this portrait compels us to confront how our celebration of physical conquest may reveal a deeper erosion of collective values.

Steps of the making of the work