The unsettling realization that the world — and the people within it — are not always safe. This piece depicts an individual whose hidden interior begins to reveal itself, bubbling toward the surface as blistered forms that rupture and ooze a tar-like black substance. That substance symbolizes the soul — not as something inherently evil, but as the darker truths and unresolved shadows that can no longer remain contained.

The donut remains intentionally open, as if the viewer were a surgeon granted direct sight into the interior. In my practice, the donut represents the self — each toroidal form a portrait of an individual moving through a specific experience. Its circular structure suggests the full life cycle, the continuous repetition of patterns, lessons, and emotional catharsis.

This work speaks to the painful awakening that not everyone is who they first appear to be. As someone who instinctively looks for the good in others, acknowledging the existence — and sometimes the dominance — of a darker side in people has been a difficult, disorienting truth to accept. With time and experience, these patterns become easier to recognize, even when we wish they weren’t there.

What Lies Beneath Eventually Emerges captures that moment of confrontation — when the inner truth rises to the surface, unmasked and undeniable — asking us to consider what is revealed, what is concealed, and what we choose to see.