This piece was very therapeutic for me at the time. While I enjoy painting, there are very few times I get to express my personal self through it. These are one of the very few where my negative emotions just poured out and it felt almost cathartic.
This is the inspiration behind it:
"As the flames slowly burn me to ash, I wonder if anybody out there will remember me once I am gone? Does my very existence mean anything to anyone? The desire to be close to someone... and yet.
"I do not realise it but I subconsciously distance myself from other people - telling myself I am not worthy of their friendship, of their love.
"Hoping for a connection but never enough to hold on to one. I start to think of the past - if I had chosen another path, would life have had been so different? Would I still be sad? I start to worry about the future and all the uncertainty it holds.
"I think so much of both timelines that I never focus on the present. I'm living life but never truly appreciating it. And as all this plays in my head, I do not know how to react but smile. Smile at the abyss because the world cultivates the images of happiness for everyone.
"However, when the door is closed, that is where I am true to my thoughts. The darkness comes crawling in all around me... engulfing... suffocating. I lose myself, my identity, my connection to the world and then I ask myself...
...Does my life have meaning?"
To Ashes, Digital, 2018
A time lapse video of this piece.
This artwork has been used with credit at WBUR's Endless Thread
