The Immolation of the True Self

Two women, joined in a shared gesture, hold a vessel bearing a sculpted face. It is not an object meant to be kept, but one to be offered — a sign of the self surrendering to transformation, even against its own will. The immolation evoked by the title speaks of passage: an act in which the familiar form is entrusted to change. The face embedded in the vessel becomes the embodiment of this awareness, as if the material itself took part in the rite. Behind the figures, two monstrous birds rise from the darkness of a tree-lined path — a transfiguration of a real memory from the artist, deeply tied to the meaning of the work. The image becomes a personal account of renunciation and devotion, of betrayal of one’s own deepest will. The work invites us to consider how much of our inner face we are willing to offer to the fire of transformation — even when that fire threatens to consume the deepest parts of who we are.