Backside (Kovalam – Kerala) is a self-portrait photograph (25.4 x 16.5 cm) on archival paper, showing the artist seated with his back to the viewer, partially hidden by a wooden wall. The juxtaposition of the structured panels and the body’s fluidity creates a tactile interplay, evoking tension between form and feeling. The gently unsettling posture evokes a sense of solitude and introspection, gazing into a pitch-black void of absence and possibility. It subtly acknowledges the body’s vulnerability and the intimacy of the unseen, evoking layers of personal and emotional exposure.

Backside (Kovalam – Kerala) is part of Baptist Coelho’s ongoing multimedia series, Kovalam – Kerala, which reflects on the artist’s emotional journey through an intimate narrative of a past relationship. The series resonates with the ideas of Gaston Bachelard (1884–1962), a French philosopher and phenomenologist, particularly his book ‘The Poetics of Space’ (1958), which explores how imagination, memory, and the intimacy of space create emotional resonance.