Torild Stray
No-hugging, Pandemic Times #3
oil on linen
2020
140 x 98 cm
During the isolation of Covid-19, my days were spent alone in my large factory studio, painting the strangeness of a world where every form of closeness felt dangerous. No hugging, masks, distance, death—it all seeped into the work. To confront that loss, I chose to paint a hug, something so ordinary that it once passed without notice, now made profound by its absence.
