Shattered
2025.
Acrylic on canvas
Dimensions W20cm x L25cm
In this piece I wanted to honour the fragmented self. The version of me that was pieced together from all kinds of remnants. Some smooth, some sharp, some weak, some cold. Fragments of memory, fragments of pain, fragments of joy.
I stopped trying to find every piece of the old self. I stopped searching for the perfect reconstruction. Instead I began to build something new.
The body in this painting is made of fragments, but it moves. It breathes. It holds its own weight. It has self-sustaining power.
There is beauty in the broken. There is strength in the reassembly.
Shattered is not about loss. It is about transformation. It is about the joy of creating a new self from scratch. Not in spite of the past, but because of it.
Esther Akello 