Take off your skin and stay awhile is a piece near and dear to my heart, as a survivor of SA and DV. Since enduring my abuse a thought that would come across my mind every single waking second would be "I want to rip off my skin". My skin felt tainted it needed to be bleached, burned, and boiled I wanted it cut off and thrown away never to be seen again. It took a long time to move away from these thoughts I got consumed by the pain of my abuse, and I was letting it take over my life. I had to put in a lot of work let my self push the memories down for too long. I ended up processing an intense of amount of grief while painting this piece, but so thing funny happened while I was painting I was looking at something so visceral, but I couldn't help but look at this with a comforting feeling, I wasn't letting the pain take over I was washing it away I was letting my self be vulnerable amongst the people I love I wasn't ripping of my skin I was letting my self be set free of the burden and finally being comfortable with or without my skin.
Figure study
24x30
Acrylic on canvas