Familiar Stranger

This head feels familiar. As if I’ve seen it before. Maybe in a dream, or in the mirror on a day when I wasn’t quite myself.

Familiar Stranger is about that dual feeling of proximity and distance.
The head looks up at an angle, almost confidently — but the gaze is empty. Or waiting.
There’s a smile in the corners of the mouth, but it doesn’t seem to come from within.

I made this head from that elusive feeling: feeling at home and yet being displaced.
Recognition that reassures and confuses you at the same time.
A portrait of something we all know, but find hard to grasp.

I love that duality. Of images that keep floating between real and unreal.
Recognition can be alienating. Especially when you find yourself in a place you didn’t think you were.

— Clay, Acrylic paint; Varnish
— Layered skin like memories