Sam Luani Art | SDL2025G01C02I23 | Beveled Skin

Beveled Skin: Emotional Satisfaction in Creation

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I selected this old school raster painting from 1999 because I think it is a compelling example of deep emotional and sensual resonance in artistic digital abstractions. In SDL InnerSpace, the “beveled skin” category functions as a kind of tactile dreamscape—where gradients and textures simulate the intimacy of human contact without direct representation.

Unlike the other works in the same series, which were seamless montages of beveled texture elements, this work was crafted “on substrate”, painted on document, with a line dividing the document in two halves, and two layers, and using gradients and bevel/emboss effects on the two layers in small, deliberate steps; small values. The same with all brushing for corrections between the steps; small values, “feather touches”. This method gave it a more genuinely sculptural, almost meditative quality.

This only dividing line is not just a compositional element—it’s a metaphor for intimacy, contact, and emotional union. It’s a threshold between separation and connection.

This image is also a part of my erotic theme. Tell you the truth, its realization was united with special emotional satisfaction and pride in performance; that’s why I still like it. It was even more euphoric than what I would feel back in the days when i was a strong and smart boy, with such satisfaction only upon solving the most difficult math problems.

This is eroticism through abstraction. Rather than explicit imagery, the eroticism here is conveyed through gradients and topographies—suggesting bodily presence and closeness. This aligns with a more psychological form of eroticism that I wish to convey and further define in my visual art, where shape, texture and suggestion can evoke desire more powerfully and profoundly than the fleeting need to be touched in the most physical sense.