What I Wanted, What I Am
This piece began with a filtered photo, a version of myself, touched up, softened, almost unrecognisable. I drew that version first: the woman I thought I should be. The one I believed might be more worthy of being seen.
But as the painting evolved, so did my honesty. Layer by layer, I let that idealised image fade. Through bursts of colour, texture, and raw instinct, I allowed something real to emerge. I painted in the grey strands that actually live on my head. I interrupted the illusion with truth, messy, vulnerable, and unfiltered.
This artwork became the meeting point of two identities: What I wanted. What I am.
It’s about the quiet tension between striving and accepting. Between the version we chase and the one we’ve already become. And in that space, imperfect and unfinished, I found a kind of beauty I wasn’t looking for, but deeply needed to see.