Title: Burning Paper Pedestals
Medium: Acrylic and mixed media on canvas
Dimensions: 24” x 36” (confirm if different)
Year: 2025
Burning Paper Pedestals is about the strange, chaotic things that kept me from falling apart—even when they had no business holding me together. It’s an altar to survival in its ugliest forms. Not grace. Not clarity. But clutter. Spray paint. Half-broken chairs. Shit scattered everywhere—inside and out—but somehow still propping me up.
The words scrawled across the canvas—“things that held me together,” now slashed and overwritten with “clutter”—are the emotional pivot of this piece. It’s not about neat closure. It’s about the mess that saved me. The overstimulation, the disorganization, the distractions I clung to when the silence got too loud.
I painted this with a kind of manic reverence—like honoring old gods I don’t believe in anymore, but still owe something to. The silhouette of a figure holding another upside-down version of herself isn’t a symbol of strength. It’s weight. Memory. Echo. This piece isn’t proud. But it’s honest.
Burning Paper Pedestals is me admitting: maybe the things I built my balance on weren’t solid… but they kept me standing all the same.