UNFITTING

UNFITTING is a reflection of the silent war between my self-perception and inherited shame. It portrays me confronting the body I was taught to question, my skin, my femininity, my existence. Seated before a mirror, I am faced not with my reflection, but with the mask I created to survive judgment, objectification, and the burden of never feeling enough. At a young age my skin was already the topic. By my teenage years, my body became one too. I was studied, picked apart, named. Too broad. Too hard. I was objectified and made to feel like less of a woman before I had even become one. As if my body had already failed at something I hadn’t yet arrived at. The red mask symbolizes the performed confidence, the protection, and the identity shaped by shame. Beneath it is vulnerability ; the longing to be seen fully, loved honestly, and accepted without performance. This work marks the beginning of my unmasking: the moment where I must finally confront the mask I once needed to survive.