Mimesis

This self-portrait was created from a digital-scan, a process that diminishes the body to an echo of the actual figure. Sawsan Al Bahar began this work in Tashkeel in January 2020. Locked at home during the crisis, spending hour after hour working on the languid figure kept her sane. She drew daily, peering into herself as a digital apparition of slumber and discomfort. The more virtual her interactions with the world became, the more she began to feel like the fabricated one and it more real. This depiction became for her not only of a state of uncertainty but of a darker psychological state, a new form of melancholy and a portal to a world with no physical presence.