Sell – Fish
Etching
Edition 1 of 15
62,5 cm x 52,5 cm
Artist’s Statement
This etching explores the complex duality of being both the creator and the product within an artistic career. Set within the surreal confines of a fish market, the central figure — part human, part fish — embodies the tension between self-expression and commodification. As artists, we are often required to “sell” ourselves, navigating a world where personal identity and creative output become inseparably entangled.
The work draws conceptual inspiration from Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, invoking themes of alienation, transformation, and estrangement from one’s former identity. The reference to Jan Matejko’s Stańczyk further reflects the introspective burden of witnessing and processing socio-political change — here, the jester’s private despair amidst public festivity finds a parallel in the artist’s quiet disquiet.
This etching also responds to a transitional period in my own life, in which inherited roles —as a child, a daughter, a member of society — begin to dissolve or shift. Recent political upheavals underscore this instability, intensifying the sense of displacement.
Ultimately, the artist must inhabit a state of dual perception: to draw from lived experience while simultaneously stepping outside it, observing with detachment. In this way, the self becomes both subject and witness, caught in the net of one’s own creation.
Gallery
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