'Description

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Keeping public face' is a term describing a desire, and often a requirement, for a person to behave in a certain way in society. The series of paintings in the collection You Are Not Alone embraces the essence of this phenomenon. For the public, we have one face while the real one we hide in order to defend ourselves. As Socrates said: “Nobody willingly chooses to do wrong. Doing wrong always harms the person doing it, and nobody seeks harm on themselves. Because of this, all wrongdoing is the result of ignorance".

In this collection, Tiko El Outa seeks to answer the main question: why do we hide our true face, and is it done consciously? What drives our decision not to be ourselves but to live a different life, putting on another face for a social life? The answers come in special linearity that manifests itself on the material and non-material levels. The red thread that runs through the paintings means the power of government and social norms. A gray thread that unites the pictures conveys a person's life in society and outside of it like a storyboard. Precise and subtle strokes that turn into loose, blurry forms play out as a conflict between real and fictional, natural and unnatural. The visual structure of chaos is profoundly perceived thanks to canvas-grained oil paper.

You Are Not Alone is a reminder of a phenomenon that exists in each of us that no one talks about.