Deep Hamlet

Oil on Canvas. Unframed 47"x 59" / 120cm x 150cm

By Cuban Artist, Maikel Benitez

In Deep Hamlet, Benitez sharpens his exploration of mortality into an unnervingly intimate confrontation. The figure, coiled in a tense, almost predatory stance—yet striking enough to appear in the pages of a high-fashion editorial—holds the viewer within the gravitational pull of his presence. His gaze pierces through the composition with electrifying intensity, not merely looking but demanding answers from those who dare meet his eyes.

Cradled close to his body, the human skull becomes a second sentinel, creating the uncanny sensation that two pairs of eyes are scrutinizing everyone and everything. Their shared vigilance collapses the boundary between realms: the living and the afterlife, flesh and memory, impulse and inevitability.

As Hamlet once proclaimed, “What a piece of work is a man.” Here, Benitez reimagines that sentiment through a contemporary, corporeal lens—rendering a moment where beauty, mortality, and self-inquiry converge in a single, haunting stare.