Layers is concerned with what cannot be seen. Every painting begins long before the image that finally meets the eye, and rests on the work beneath it: the foundational marks and the middle passages that never reach the surface but shape everything that does.
Those buried layers are where the painting is decided. A colour laid down early and painted over still governs the tone above it. A form scraped back leaves its pressure on whatever follows. Nothing is wasted, and nothing is truly gone. Each canvas carries a hidden history that gives the final image its weight.
It is the soul of the work, present but out of view. Strip the layers away and the surface would still exist, but something essential would be missing from it. Some of the most important marks in any painting are the ones that will never be seen.