A hybrid sculpture where the tree and me each did our part to create the whole.
A freshly cut beech was the basis of this figure. I got in resonance with the two branch stumps and gave a body to it.
Many of us carry around scared over wounds - physical and psychical - that limit our movement and potential, hamper our expression or even leave us literally crippled in body and/or soul.
Other than trees, we can't grow new branches.
We have to make do with what we got.
But we need to recognise the wounds, acknowledge the pain, deal with the deformation. The worst we can do is trying to ignore it, gloss over it, pretend it isn't there.
Other than what we may think - that makes it worse, it festers under the surface and becomes a bloated shadow-self, that can make us lose our way completely.
Instead, let us be proud of our scars, the battles we survived.
When we own our deformation, we are free and beautiful.
And we see the more for it.
See beyond the masks and cosmetics, the false smiles and the pretend cool.
Can free ourselves from societal conventions and become real human beings.
Humanity needs us real.