This series came from a place of feeling foolish — not in the playful sense, but in that quiet, heavy way you feel when you realise you’ve believed something you shouldn’t have. I became drawn to the image of the dunce: someone marked by their own mistakes, made to sit and wear them publicly. It felt fitting — not as punishment, but as acknowledgment.
In these paintings, I used myself as the subject because it was a kind of confrontation. A way to hold up a mirror and say, “yes, that was me.” The dunce cap became both costume and confession.
The small details tell their own story — the hearts on the arm, two whole and one broken; the empty glass in hand. They’re small symbols of something lost, but also of what’s left behind when you finally stop pretending not to see it.
These works aren’t really about heartbreak so much as about the moments that follow — the quiet embarrassment, the reflection, the strange mix of shame and tenderness you feel toward your past self. It’s an attempt to find beauty, even in the moments where you wish you’d known better.
