The reassembled self

A figure close to frontal, chin lowered, eyes closed. Across the lower face, a band of dark material — dense, matte, layered like lacquered cloth or dried resin — seals the mouth from ear to ear. Above it, the skin of the forehead carries cracked membrane: translucent, papery, applied in strips that follow no anatomical logic. Down the throat, a line of red suture stitches the body closed from chin to collarbone. The hand rests at the jaw without pressure — a gesture that reads as neither concealment nor support. Below the neck, lace and dark fabric open at the chest, framing the suture line rather than interrupting it. The surface does not damage the figure; it completes it. What draws the eye first — the pale skin, the gold earrings, the precise lashes — earns its attention only to deliver it to the seam running through the center of everything.