Unmasking
This is the part of me no one was ever supposed to see.
This is me — unmasked.
The Unmasking is a symbolic self-portrait created after I discovered I’m autistic. It’s the visual language of the inside of my mind.
The painting unfolds in a dreamlike logic only I could explain — or maybe can’t. A white window at the top left looks out through my left eye onto a grayscale world, the only “normal” visible in this otherwise unruly internal landscape. An iceberg is flipped, blooming with purple flowers. My totem cat sits there — my softness, my reminder of mastery in comfort in the discomfort. Eyes watch from every angle. Seagulls circle above, echoing a surreal and joyful memory in a beach parking garage.
A vintage, overly proper image of a porcelain-skinned statue — expressionless, demure, idealized. I collaged a new dress over her slowly, deliberately, as if rewriting the narrative she represented. Her face still peers through a watchful eye, a cheeky echo of the mask I used to wear — always polite, always palatable, hiding in plain sight.
This painting wasn’t easy to make. In fact, I threw it away before it began to speak to me. But when I stopped fighting it, it told me the truth.
This is the part of me no one was ever supposed to see.
This is me — unmasked.
The Unmasking is a symbolic self-portrait created after I discovered I’m autistic. It’s the visual language of the inside of my mind.
The painting unfolds in a dreamlike logic only I could explain — or maybe can’t. A white window at the top left looks out through my left eye onto a grayscale world, the only “normal” visible in this otherwise unruly internal landscape. An iceberg is flipped, blooming with purple flowers. My totem cat sits there — my softness, my reminder of mastery in comfort in the discomfort. Eyes watch from every angle. Seagulls circle above, echoing a surreal and joyful memory in a beach parking garage.
A vintage, overly proper image of a porcelain-skinned statue — expressionless, demure, idealized. I collaged a new dress over her slowly, deliberately, as if rewriting the narrative she represented. Her face still peers through a watchful eye, a cheeky echo of the mask I used to wear — always polite, always palatable, hiding in plain sight.
This painting wasn’t easy to make. In fact, I threw it away before it began to speak to me. But when I stopped fighting it, it told me the truth.
This is the part of me no one was ever supposed to see.
This is me — unmasked.
The Unmasking is a symbolic self-portrait created after I discovered I’m autistic. It’s the visual language of the inside of my mind.
The painting unfolds in a dreamlike logic only I could explain — or maybe can’t. A white window at the top left looks out through my left eye onto a grayscale world, the only “normal” visible in this otherwise unruly internal landscape. An iceberg is flipped, blooming with purple flowers. My totem cat sits there — my softness, my reminder of mastery in comfort in the discomfort. Eyes watch from every angle. Seagulls circle above, echoing a surreal and joyful memory in a beach parking garage.
A vintage, overly proper image of a porcelain-skinned statue — expressionless, demure, idealized. I collaged a new dress over her slowly, deliberately, as if rewriting the narrative she represented. Her face still peers through a watchful eye, a cheeky echo of the mask I used to wear — always polite, always palatable, hiding in plain sight.
This painting wasn’t easy to make. In fact, I threw it away before it began to speak to me. But when I stopped fighting it, it told me the truth.