Stencil art is usually recognized for its confidence: bold shapes, clean edges, an image that announces itself immediately. This work moves in the opposite direction, toward something quieter.
Over time, that's meant developing small, specific ways of pulling the process away from certainty. Some live in how the paint is applied. Some live in the layering. One is a technique of gently softening the edge of the stencil itself, not enough to lose the image, just enough to let its edges slip. The portrait stops feeling cut into the paper and starts feeling like it settled there.
Softness, in this context, isn't the absence of precision. It's precision applied with restraint: enough control to know exactly how much certainty to give up, and where.