Title: Who Will I Be When I Wake from Enduring
Medium: Mixed media on wood panel — acrylic paint with Mod Podge paper collage
Dimensions: 17 x 25 inches (1” depth, sunken frame board)
Year: 2025
Description:
This work layers text fragments, collage, and bold acrylic portraiture into a densely charged surface. The central gaze, painted in vivid strokes of magenta, orange, and blue, peers through a barrage of clipped words and phrases — fragments of identity, contradiction, and cultural echo. Each strip of text reads like both revelation and interruption, forcing the viewer to parse meaning in the overlap of voice and silence.
By mounting the piece on a solid wood panel rather than stretched canvas, the painting takes on a physical weight and permanence, echoing the heaviness of endurance. The collage of cut phrases — “I made myself,” “Bless this mess,” “Designed to be disobedient” — fractures and multiplies meaning, suggesting that identity is not singular but assembled, unstable, and ever-shifting.
The title becomes a guiding question: Who will I be when I wake from enduring? — a reflection on survival, transformation, and the uncertainty of what self emerges when struggle subsides.