KYRIANNA

This was my first clearly developed self portrait. In high school I had done of fair amount of self portraiture loosely centering around the topic of chronic pain, but this piece was a big step for me and made my artistic path clearer than ever. The idea was inspired by Puget Sound which my new home of Tacoma Washington was perched above. Many afternoons I would walk down to the water and swim before painting. The clammy feeling of the water and sharpness and sliminess of the sealife felt similar to sensations in my own body. I thought of the forced slowness my condition causes in me and imagined the sealife growing on my skin too.