One of the most ambitious and narratively complex works in the entire collection — a large-format pastel that synthesizes Sidney's figurative, abstract, and cosmological vocabularies into a single unified composition. Two human faces appear in the work: at upper left, a stylized frontal face with simplified features — wide eyes, a small mouth, the face of a mask or an idol; at lower left, a more naturalistically rendered female profile, three-quarter view, with delicate features and a sense of genuine portraiture. Both faces are embedded in — or emerging from — a dense field of abstract forms.
The abstract field is extraordinary in its variety. At upper center, an enormous radiating burst in golden orange-yellow — a sun or an explosion — sends diagonal lines across the upper half of the composition. At upper right, a large spiral form in blue and ochre, concentric and precisely rendered, functions as a cosmological anchor. To the right of center, a cascade of smaller geode-like or cellular forms — each outlined and layered in the manner of Portal I — creates a vertical column of contained energies. The lower right quadrant dissolves into a large spiral ground in olive-green and yellow, the biggest continuous curved form in the work.
Between the faces and through the abstract elements, the composition creates a narrative of two presences — the mask face and the portrait face — existing within a universe of spirals and light and cellular forms. Whether these are portraits of specific people, archetypes, or aspects of Sidney's own interior world is unknowable. What is certain is that this work represents the fullest integration of everything Sidney knew how to do, all at once, on a single surface.
The pastel medium here is pushed to its limits — the density and variety of mark, the mixing of fine lines and broad areas, the complexity of the color relationships — this is a work that took time and intention.