A woman rides a donkey through a darkened forest, a symbol long tied to primal instinct, lust, and uninhibited desire. Yet she appears hollow: pale skin, loosened hair, distant eyes devoid of life. Once condemned and shamed for her sexuality, she has become estranged from her own desire. The beast still carries the weight of suppressed longing, but the woman herself has gone numb, disconnected from the very instincts she was taught to fear.
 
The title of this piece "Going Insane" captures a brutal double bind: being taught that desire is dangerous or shameful, then later being judged for numbness, withdrawal, or loss of desire that came from surviving that shame in the first place.
 
When someone is denied a safe way to want, to need, to express hunger, for love, sex, ambition, freedom, attention, the mind often reroutes that energy into obsession, dissociation, self-destruction, fantasy, rage, perfectionism, or collapse. It has the structure of tragedy: desire becomes guilt, guilt becomes suppression, suppression becomes emptiness, emptiness becomes punishment, punishment becomes fragmentation.
 
Acrylics on Canvas, 2026.
8" x 10"; 20,32 x 25,4 cm
Frame in the picture included. (Painting shipped already framed.)
Ready to hang with a D-ring on the back.
Covered in gloss protective varnish.