“10 Minutes Before the Fiasco”

“10 Minutes Before the Fiasco”
Acrylic on canvas;100x70 cm
2026

There is always a moment before collapse when everything still looks almost beautiful.The character in this painting stands somewhere between performance and disaster. Holding a mirror but refusing reflection, smiling through emotional static, trapped inside a staged version of happiness. The audience is already present. The scene has already begun. Yet something feels unstable beneath it all.

I wanted this work to feel theatrical and psychologically familiar at the same time. Like the strange pressure to remain charming, composed, entertaining, even while internally falling apart.

The blue figure becomes both a mask and a self portrait. The crossed eyes erase individuality and replace it with emotional exhaustion hidden beneath visual optimism. The flower, the pastel palette, the almost cartoon-like innocence create a tension against the darker lower half of the painting, where anonymous silhouettes watch silently, almost like witnesses before impact.This painting is about the absurd beauty of pretending everything is under control moments before it clearly is not.

“I have already lost touch with a couple of people I used to be.”
— Joan Didion