The mask in this body of work examines the shifting terrain of persona and identity, the space between how one appears to others and who one is in private. Drawing from mythology and iconography, the work reflects on the many ways women have been represented throughout art, cinema, and literature.
Repressed fears and desires are often projected onto the female body, reinforcing narrow narratives of what it means to be a woman. These projections suggest that there is only one acceptable way, or its opposite, to embody femininity. This paradox leaves women constantly visible as bodies yet unseen as subjects.
Symbolic masks and quiet, restrained gestures convey the tension between intimacy and exposure, between vulnerability and the expectations imposed by cultural, historical, and religious ideals. The figures carry the weight of certain archetypes but also transform them, suggesting that identity is never singular but composed of many shifting selves.
Figures such as the bride, dressed in white and imagined as pure and perfect, or the Madonna, radiant with sanctity, recur throughout the imagery. These icons hold power but also impose limits, defining womanhood through ideals that were not freely chosen. Within this work, they are neither rejected nor replicated but reclaimed and reinterpreted. Perfection is no longer tied to submission or silence; it becomes a site of transformation, strength, and renewal.
Through self-portraits and portraits of others, the work reimagines archetypes such as the bride, the mother, the maiden, and the damsel in distress. These women are not passive representations but active agents who reflect, resist, and reshape what has been projected onto them. In this way, the work creates a space for multiplicity, allowing the feminine self to exist beyond the boundaries of the gaze.
