A man defined by the external (an original work)

Here the artist asks the viewer to imagine how the material world shapes our being. We are nothing without the atoms, molecules, chemicals and other floating pieces of dross that define our existence. Here the man is characterised wholly by the paints that he is etched into, he is in essence a negative being, a scraping, a dark shadow in a world of light, just as we are imprisoned in a wold of matter (mundus) so the etching is in the fetters of the paints