Enrico David’s art is haunted by impermanence. Figures and faces slip in and out of being, deliquescing and dematerializing in the artist’s paintings, textiles and sculptures. Some seem to strive for visual coherence while others coyly evade it. Rarely do any attain it – but this is less a shortcoming than a source of visual intrigue.

The exhibition ‘Works on Paper: 1995–2026’ at VeneKlasen in New York makes a case for the artist’s drawings and watercolours as an encapsulation of the broader logic of his practice. Works on view render bodies and forms as mutable, as opposed to the relatively emphatic presence of his large-scale pieces, which often foreground the corporeality of the abject body. The works on paper reverse this dynamic, gesturing instead toward psychological and ephemeral states.