LONG.LIVE.$ELF (2024)
Acrylic on Canvas56in x 48in
Growing up my mother would always say, “Mich in life you have to make sacrifices” - and I used to think she sacrificed too much of herself, that she was abandoning herself and subconsciously, me. And so, as a child I promised myself I wouldn't become an emblem of personal or familial sacrifice.
However, as an adult, I often feel conflicted by the sacrifices made in search of my autonomy. I feel a pull between two worlds: leaving behind the comfort of the past self and being enveloped by the chasm of uncertainty that the new self possesses.
LONG.LIVE.$ELF aims to capture the legacy of martyrdom between mother and child but also this new dynamic of self vs self, ruminating on the self that protected and carried me this far that I have outgrown but can’t quite leave behind, and the self that I need to embody to better navigate a mutable world. In considering the past, present and future, the work becomes a meditation on the complex relationality of abandonment, sacrifice and self-actualization as legacy.
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BC, Canada
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