Layered images of a bruise beneath coarse leg hair, an inflamed welt, and the bottom of a cup sticky with dried wine create a dimensional base. Images are layered together, connecting to the practice of collage, to create a piece where one is unsure which parts are on the same plane. Text reading “Especial”, the tagline of Modelo’s classic beer, is rendered almost like a tattoo, in the same rich dark blue ink that I use in my diary. In the opposite corner of the canvas is an image of a $5 bill found one google, which is most certainly AI generated. Across from it, a piercing barbell that seems as if it enters the sticky dry wine glass. In the final corner, a splatter of cum from an internet porn site. 

I began creating this piece after I noticed a large firm welt on my shin, almost like a second knee, that faded into a dark bruise the size of my hand. All my friends found it disgusting, but I was unbothered by it. I haven’t felt particularly at home in my body as of recently, whether or not I want to admit this fact to myself. I’m tortured by self criticism about what my body should look like, how my mind should work, how I should be at age twenty. 

I’ve tried many tricks to try to make it feel right again: tattoos, piercings, sex, drugs, beer, the gym, the club, smoking weed, not smoking weed, laying very still in bed, and getting up. Some of it helps, and some of it doesn’t. This painting isn’t about virtue and vice, about mistakes or lessons, though. It’s about coping with the tortured thought of dealing with the way my brain works for the rest of my life, and how horrified others are by this reality. 100 x 160 cm.