Titled Embodied, the exhibitionfeatures Dutch painter Willem Hoeffnagel’s recent works surrounding the subtle sentiments in life, where he continues to create his recognizable figures while exploring introspection and emotions. He believes they are a core component that makes humans distinctive, declaring that the emotions we experience in life are a fundamental part of what makes us human - to Hoeffnagel, there are no absolute good or bad emotions, but just a representation of a state of mind. His cartoonesque figures act as a placeholder without them having to represent a specific person, giving room to ambiguity about what stories or situations they are in, allowing the viewer room for interpretation. Each of his works exhibiting in Embodied conveys emotions that viewers grasp and sympathize with, but are not clearly defined.
In Embodied, Hoeffnagel visualizes intangible feelings through the juxtaposition of eyes and several elements, creating various scenes carrying subtle emotions. With the absence of facial expressions, the artist himself and viewers can echo with the characters through other factors such as hand gestures, rain drops, ropes. In one of the highlighted works, Tangled portraits a moment of a figure being tangled in ropes. From the placement of the fingers, viewers can sense the slight anxiousness, or perhaps excitement the character is experiencing.