Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimension: 90cm x 70cm (Excluding frame)
                    102cm x 83cm (Including frame)
Year created: 2017
 
" As an artist, there are a handful of paintings which are so deeply personal and very dear to me, to the point where I begin to doubt if I'll ever let them go. 
This is one of them.
 
Everyday it feels like we are each put under immense pressure by just about everything and everyone around us, in a bid to mold us into their own idea of how we should be, and for the most part, many of us play along because we feel that's what we are supposed to do. No!
Each person has a unique quality...'a song' so to say, that their true soul longs to sing out loud but the world just seems to want it surpressed. 
As an individual, after realizing the fact that I could never please everyone even if I lived a thousand lifetimes, I decided from a certain point in my life to speak 'my truths', do what 'I' enjoy and to the best of my ability, Live my life. 
I used the composition of this painting to express the great freedom that comes with being yourself and 'playing your own song.'
The young subject is sitting infront of her piano topless, indicating she is in her safe zone, in a place where she doesnt have be mindful of how she appears, like the freedom we all get from entering our homes and just releasing ourselves from the often self-inflicted torment we call fashion, or the false 'masks' we wear just to impress the public. The kind of heavenly comfort that comes from taking off the body-hugging apparels, bras, shoes etc. and slipping into your favourite oversized t-shirts and slippers. 
In this painting, she is free, she strokes her pet and enjoys her own company, while she plays her own song."