Dinner

Year

2021

Medium

oil/paper

Dimensions

40x30

Series

Therapy Project

In this work, dinner becomes not an everyday scene, but an image of a person being absorbed into someone else’s system. The small pale figure is placed at the bottom of the composition, almost like a guest who has already been invited — though it remains unclear whether to the table, or into the mechanism of consumption itself. The large fields of color around her resemble figures, silhouettes, or looming bodies. They are not depicted literally, but they create the sense of a community that is larger and stronger than the individual. This space does not feel open; rather, it closes in around the heroine, draws her into itself, and turns dinner into an anxious ritual of belonging. The title “Dinner” can be understood here as a metaphor for social exchange: a person finds herself in a situation where she seems to be accepted, yet at the same time appropriated. The boundary between hospitality and absorption becomes unstable. It may look like a scene of encounter, but there is no lightness in it — only a sense of pressure, dependence, and the need to occupy an assigned place. The contrast between the small pale figure and the heavy surrounding forms intensifies the central theme of the work: being part of a group does not always mean being protected. Sometimes it means finding oneself inside someone else’s rules, expectations, and roles, where one’s body and presence no longer belong only to oneself.