False Guarded
charcoal on birch Panel
30 x 20
False Guarded is part of a broader series examining generational trauma and the ways inherited pain can shape the emotional lives of women. The work focuses on a survival response born from repeated hurt: the decision to abandon vulnerability in favor of protection. What begins as a necessary coping mechanism gradually becomes a defining structure, allowing fear to dictate the terms of one’s life.
The figure is held in a defensive posture, one arm raised and rigid, slowly transforming into a tree-like form. This stance reflects emotional petrification—the point at which self-guarding hardens into permanence. Shelf fungi grow along the raised arm, referencing their tendency to thrive on trees that appear healthy but are hollowing on the inside. The imagery becomes a metaphor for carrying pain quietly, maintaining strength and functionality while emotional pain remains unseen.
The opposite arm lowers, exposing an open wrist to a snake winding upward along the body. The snake symbolizes fear, persistent, intimate, and increasingly influential when left unchallenged. Rather than confronting or releasing it, the figure allows it space, illustrating how fear can become familiar and inviting.
Rendered in charcoal on wood, the work emphasizes time, resistance, and accumulation. The medium resists erasure, mirroring the emotional labor of women who survive by becoming immovable, rooted in endurance, shaped by inherited trauma, and suspended between protection and the possibility of transformation.
Additional shipping/delivery charges will be handled between the artist and buyer after the purchase.
