Description
Oil on Board
55 x 29 cm
The Pact, oil on board, 55 x 29 cm, 2019, is a raw and unsettling exploration of control, surrender, and the complex dance of power within relationships – both with others and within the self. At its core, the painting
delves into what happens when one willingly – or unknowingly – gives oneself over to forces once perceived as protective, only to encounter their devouring side.
A female figure, caught in a state of profound disempowerment, sits at the heart of the composition. She cannot speak, see, or use her hands: her senses no longer her own. Is she a sacrifice, a victim of a darker mythic archetype, or a participant in a pact made with the beast? The cosmic creature that looms over her blurs the line between external predator and internal psychological force, echoing archetypes such as Bluebeard – a destructive male figure embedded in the female psyche, threatening to consume her.
Flesh and scale dissolve into one another, evoking a paradoxical intimacy: love, fear, surrender, and survival coalesce in the painting’s visceral palette of purple and crimson – tones that evoke the raw inner
layers of the imaginal body, the unseen depths of psyche made visible. The beast’s gaze is ambiguous, directed outward toward the viewer as though caught in the act, creating an unsettling tension that invites
reflection.
The Pact speaks to cycles of trauma and healing: how old archetypes entrap us; how myths of the beast, the protector, the lover, or the monster shape our inner world – especially within the feminine psyche. The work also resonates with personal experience: a visual processing of Stockholm Syndrome and an emotionally complex relationship. Ultimately, the painting invites viewers to confront shifting roles – victim, lover, monster, survivor – and how these evolve through experience, awakening, and the long arc of individuation.
