Gallery Entry
Lost Identity (Zagubiona tożsamość)
By Joanna · PL
Lost Identity explores the fragile boundary between being visible and being known. A human face emerges from vertical layers of colour, then dissolves into them. The eyes and mouth remain recognisable, but the portrait resists becoming a fixed, complete likeness. In the context of Human After All, I present this painting as a reflection on identity in an age when images of people can be endlessly generated, altered and circulated. What happens to our sense of self when a face becomes something that can be reconstructed on demand? The fragmented figure offers no definitive answer. It holds a tension between presence and disappearance, recognition and uncertainty. The acrylic and dry pastel surface makes the physical act of painting visible. Layering, interruption and the encounter between colour and facial features carry the work's emotional meaning. For me, the human contribution lies in deciding what to reveal, what to leave unresolved, and why that uncertainty matters. This painting was created in 2025. Its connection to the competition's theme is a present-day reading of the work, rather than a claim that it was originally conceived as a response to AI.