Memory in Derealisation

This was the first painting that set the tone for the series. Its stillness and realism make me question the boundary between truth and imagination—what makes these people real? Painting my father, who passed away in 2010, and my mother, whom I haven’t seen in years, forced me to confront the fragility of memory—how it preserves and distorts at the same time.

What makes a memory real? How do we know it exists beyond our own minds? You see me paint the same picture again and again, yet each version shifts—sometimes the people are there, sometimes they disappear. Which version is the true one? All I know is that these figures are anchored to a single photograph, but even that feels unstable. How do I know these people still exist in the world and not only in my memory?

This question should have a simple answer. But living in a state of derealization, being separated from my home for years, no longer grounded in the reality I grew up in, has blurred the line between what is real and what is remembered. When you are cut off from your context—the place that shaped your senses—even your memories begin to feel untethered. I found myself questioning whether the people and moments I paint still exist as I remember them, or whether they have become something else entirely.

The way I work involves constant trial and error; it’s a battle to accomplish what cannot be accomplished. Even gold won’t make them real.

Here, the idea begins to evolve. I attempt to place these familiar figures into invented spaces—rooms, moments, or contexts that never existed—trying to see how far memory can stretch before it breaks.

This piece captures the quiet rituals that photographs and keepsakes create within my living space. The faces feel known, yet the room feels foreign—the bed, the sheets, the furniture all seem to reject their presence. It becomes a reflection of myself, suspended between belonging and displacement, asking again: what anchors me to the present?