Pagliacci (2022)

This photographic work, inspired by the opera Pagliacci, captures the irony of human sorrow hidden behind laughter. The clown’s makeup symbolizes playfulness and comedy, yet the expressions and composition reveal the pain beneath. It evokes the fate of Canio, who must entertain the audience on stage while in reality being consumed by love, betrayal, jealousy, and tragedy. The contrast between light and shadow, stage and reality, serves as a central visual device.
The subject, adorned in striking makeup and bathed in stage light, simultaneously reveals a fragile and sorrowful true self within the shadows. This irony dramatically recalls the theme of “the tears behind an artist’s smile.” Ultimately, the work is not a literal recreation of the opera, but a contemporary reinterpretation of its essence: the message that Pagliacci conveys—even while performing laughter, one cannot conceal the tears within.