This thesis examines the author's portrait painting practice from 2022 to 2025, centered on the theme of human figures. "The Various Countenances of the Multitude", derived from Buddhist terminology, embodies the concept of distinguishing between the existence of the self and external phenomena. The author employs this as a conceptual framework, emphasizing a personal perspective to imagine and depict all human figures from the external world. These representations emerge from the author's psychological unease regarding the "gaze of the other" and the accumulation and transformation of inner shadow memories. Through subjective imagination and direct expression of sensation, these works manifest as multiple manifestations that exist between clarity and ambiguity, between human and non-human forms.

The author analyzes multiple artists who employ portraiture as their primary creative medium through two distinct thematic approaches: the fragmented body and the political body. This analysis explores various possibilities for depicting human portraits and compares their works and creative contexts with the author's conceptual choices in creating "The Various Countenances of the Multitude," thereby clarifying the author's creative trajectory and position within art history.

The personal creative analysis comprises three components: the exploration of creative themes, Dislocation—Formal Experimentation, and material experimentation. The author first reviews the previous creative journey, examining how thematic questions gradually emerged and prompted the search for new expressive directions. Subsequently, through the employment of different materials and techniques, along with extensive preliminary studies, the author accumulated creative experience and applied these findings to three distinct creative phases within "The Various Countenances of the Multitude." Chapter Four, focusing on the analysis of major works and creative practice, concentrates on the principal works from each phase, analyzing the author's conceptual transformations during the creative process and the actual implementation conditions.

Finally, through the examination of research related to the body and the face, the author seeks to further understand the multiple meanings and possibilities within the "The Various Countenances of the Multitude" series. Simultaneously, the author aspires to continue developing the unfinished aspects of this series and to expand into additional creative propositions.