Molt || digital painting

My costume is too tight-fitting
It begins to pinch me
Opens old scars and creates new wounds

costume needs repairing
I patch, glue, sew

My costume no longer fits me
I stretch it with difficulty
It's ripping at the seams

My costume is not mine anymore
Moulds me
Gives me an alien shape

My costume won't let me take it off
Takes control of my movements

Where has my costume gone?

My inside and outside have melted together

What I have on the inside - I also have on the outside

There are no boundaries, no masks

I give out as much as I take in

I no longer have to hide, there is nothing to be ashamed of

Each of us pretends a little.

We pretend to be more capable, more intelligent and more beautiful in the hope that the world will fall for our image dreamed up in our own heads. We want to appear confident in ourselves and our abilities. We fake self-acceptance and make displays of ‘self-irony’. We will do absolutely anything but make a real change. And real change costs. It costs not only time and courage. It costs us our unfulfilled dreams. It costs what we love and what we are attached to. The price of change is: everything.

I've been thinking a lot lately about how we perceive ourselves. The media promotes absolute self-acceptance and the practice of ‘self-love’and ‘self-care’. If we make the assumption that we are ‘perfect’ as we are - where is the room for growth? Perhaps we are simply covering up reality to feel a little better for a short while. Isn't it better to go in the direction of self-criticism‘, then self-development’ which might finally mean: ‘self-help’?

My skin itches
does not seem to be enough of it
It is tight and painful
It slowly cracks - which brings me relief

I am slowly sliding fresh, soft flesh out of too tight skin
Moulting into an alien shape. I don't feel sorry for the old skin.

The new skin is thin.
It is easily injured, scratched.
It is easly injured by new experiences and unpleasant words.

I take care of it and yet it becomes dull and dry.

It is slowly hardening.

About the drawing

The drawing is based on a photograph taken during the show called ‘Red Dragon’ staged by the Polish performance group ‘Suka-Off’. I do not include the original photo because the artist was performing naked.

The artist's body is covered with a layer of latex. The thin layer that makes up the ‘costume’ does not cause the artist any problem, more - the artist does not notice its presence at all. It is only when strings are tied to the latex that artist realises he is immobilised by those strings. In order to free himself from his bonds, he has to tear off the ‘second skin’.

The process is very long and painful.

The ‘molt’ literally and metaphorically no longer resembles its owner. It remains in the same place, tied up with strings. Shell of a man.

Changes do not always have to be painful and long-lasting. But the real ones usually are.