'the damnest thing'

'the damnest thing' (2/3)

2026 I.J Seniff

Original Mixed Media

8'x10' Bristol Paper | Art 5'x7'

Hand titled, signed & numbered

The Doppelganger Series grew out of my habit of constantly reworking and painting over older pieces. Most of my work changes drastically from where it starts, and over the years a lot of paintings disappeared completely under new layers, got cut apart, painted over, or existed only in old photographs and scans. Rather than treating those lost works as failures or dead ends, I became interested in revisiting them and seeing what might have happened if I had gone in another direction.

Each piece in the series begins with one of those earlier works as its foundation. The original image is printed on Bristol paper and then reworked by hand using whatever materials make sense at the time, watercolor pencil, gouache, pastel, acrylic, graphite, ink, ballpoint pen, or whatever else happens to be available. The process becomes part excavation, part argument with my younger self.

At its core, the Doppelganger Series is about revision, memory, and the idea that no piece is ever really finished. They are alternate timelines for paintings that already lived one life. The visual equivalent of a “what if?” comic book.