Skateboarding, movement, and the art of the silhouette
Some artworks emerge from a moment in life that continues to resonate long after they are created.
My skateboard silhouette studies are one of those series.
They began with a fascination for movement: the moment when a skateboarder and the skateboard become one shape in space. The body turns, the board leaves the ground, balance shifts, and there it is: a feeling of freedom, joy and endless possibilities.
And the story behind these works begins long before I created the illustrations.
A personal connection with skateboarding
I first discovered skateboarding when I was 16/17, during my exchange year in Venezuela.
At that time, skateboarding gave me a feeling of freedom and belonging that felt deeply meaningful to me. I became part of a community of skateboarders who supported each other, encouraged each other, and shared the excitement of learning something new.
One of my biggest achievements back then was learning to jump down a 3-step staircase. It made me so happy each time I landed and it represented courage, trust, and overcoming fear.
Many years later, I found my way back to skateboarding.
At the end of 2017, when I was living in Berlin, I started skating again. First with a mini board, which replaced my bicycle and became my everyday way of moving through the city. I loved cruising through Berlin, experiencing familiar streets from this flow-based perspective.
Soon after, I bought a popsicle skateboard again and started visiting skate halls and skateparks. I learned new tricks, practiced old ones, and reconnected with other skaters and with the feeling I had loved years before.
It reminded me that age is just a number. As soon as I am on the board, it feels as though I jumped those stairs in Maracaibo, Venezuela, just yesterday.
Translating movement into silhouettes
During this period, I started creating a series of monochrome skateboard illustrations.
Unlike other works of mine, which are often connected to line work, these illustrations focus on silhouette, colour, and movement.
At first, they were simply a playful approach to using watercolor in quick, expressive ways. With a few watery brushstrokes, often using just one color, I captured something that fascinates me: the movement of skateboarders.
The shapes created when someone jumps, turns, or balances with the board.
The moment when the body and skateboard become one gesture.
I am interested in reducing the image to its essential elements
— the gesture, the rhythm, and the energy.
Many of these paintings are created very quickly. Some only take a few minutes.
At that time, I did not necessarily see them as finished artworks.
But sometimes artworks surprise us.
When a study becomes something more
When I prepared my solo exhibition in 2018, I suddenly felt inspired to include some of these skateboard silhouette paintings. They were not the works I initially considered my strongest pieces. Yet they found an outstanding resonance.
All of the skateboard silhouette illustrations included in the exhibition were sold.
Because of the beautiful response these works received, some of them later also became available as fine art posters, allowing these moments of movement and freedom to continue living in other people's spaces.
A question that brought the story back
Recently, after sharing some of these monochromatic pieces again on Instagram, I received this DM:
“Do you also ride down stairs with your skateboard?”
The question made me smile because it reminded me that behind every illustration there is a personal story.
The skateboarder in the illustration might be grinding down a rail and still, the deeper inspiration is not about a specific trick.
It is about the feeling behind skateboarding:
Freedom.
Courage.
Movement.
The willingness to try, fall, and continue.
And trust.
The illustrations
Looking back at this series today, I see how closely it connects to themes that continue to appear throughout my art: movement, freedom, expression, and the reflection of a moment.
These works are inspired by photographic references, but through the reduction into silhouettes, colors, and movement, they become something new. They are not copies of a moment. They are a reflection of the energy I sense within that moment.
Some of these skateboard illustrations are available as fine art posters. If you feel drawn to one of these moments of movement and freedom, feel free to get in touch.
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