My surface is prickly, my form unsettling, as if I exist only to repel distractions and disturbances.
But the truth is, this is not me. What you see is only a shell, a decoy, a scarecrow stitched together from fragments of defense.
My real self is elsewhere fluid, hidden, untouchable. This figure is the monster I leave behind, a guardian to protect the softer, more vulnerable form that cannot risk exposure.
This piece is about the masks we construct, the versions of ourselves that stand in the world while our truest essence retreats.
It asks: what do we leave behind to guard us, and what does it cost to live through our proxies? Is the monster a protector, or does it become the only thing others ever see?
In creating this work, I wanted to capture that tension between presence and absence, between the jagged armor we show and the unseen form we conceal. It is both a warning and an invitation: to look closer, to question what is real, and to wonder what lies beyond the edges.
Esther Akello 
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