a study of loss reflects the kind of wounds that remain long after survival. Some are visible, carved into the skin like evidence of battle. while others settle quietly beneath the surface, where no armor can reach. the figure carries both: the violence of war and the slower grief of becoming someone unfamiliar to yourself. the gilded armor speaks of glory, devotion, and endurance, yet its weight feels almost unbearable against a body already marked by absence. the scars are not only reminders of physical conflict, but of faith worn thin, innocence abandoned, and the silent erosion that comes from carrying pain for too long. there is mourning within the stillness of the piece, mourning for what was lost, for what had to be sacrificed in order to remain standing. i wanted the work to exist somewhere between strength and collapse, where survival itself becomes a kind of loneliness. beneath the gold and ornamentation is a person trying to hold together the fragments left behind by both war and the soul’s quieter devastations. BE, May, 2026 Procreate & Lightroom, 3000x2000px