Bésame

Encaustic and Oil on Wood Panel. Unframed 16"x16" / 40cm x 40cm

Bésame, by American-Argentinian artist Miguel Perez Lem’s ongoing series devoted to longing, memory, and the quiet intensity of human feeling, unfolds as an intimate meditation on desire suspended in time. Rendered on a warm wood panel, the partially revealed female figure emerges through soft chiaroscuro, her posture at once open and guarded. The absence of a fully visible face shifts the emotional weight onto the body itself, transforming it into a site of vulnerability, anticipation, and remembrance.

The artist employs a layered process that begins with charcoal directly on the wood, defining the figure through velvety contours that feel both corporeal and ephemeral. Oil paint is then applied to coax a muted luminosity from the skin, while a final encaustic veil seals the surface in a translucent hush, suspending the image in a dreamlike stillness—as though held within memory rather than anchored to the present.

Running vertically along the panel, Perez Lem inscribes lyrics from “Bésame Mucho” by Consuelito Velázquez. The phrase, “Bésame, bésame mucho, como si fuera esta noche la última vez. Bésame mucho, que tengo (miedo a perderte, perderte después.)" Loosely translated as “Kiss me—kiss me endlessly, as though tonight were our final night. Kiss me still, for I am (afraid of losing you —losing you afterward.)”The words do not merely accompany the image—they inhabit it, offering a voice to the figure’s quiet posture and embedding the artwork in a lineage of love, projection, and desire.