The Wound That Precedes Me II

 The Wound That Precedes Me II

This second piece in the series continues the exploration of the fractured self, but from a slightly different angle — both literally and conceptually. Once again built from reclaimed wood rather than carved from a single block, the sculpture feels even more unstable, as if the act of splitting the head has become more violent, more definitive.

In The Wound That Precedes Me II, the two halves of the face seem less like mirror images and more like competing versions of the same being. One side appears heavier, more damaged; the other sharper, almost defiant. Wooden sticks pierce the structure like remnants of an invisible violence or attempts at reconstruction that failed.

The work insists on the idea that our most profound wounds are not acquired along the way — they precede us. They are the condition from which identity is born. The sculpture does not offer resolution or healing. Instead, it presents the fracture as an original state: the crack through which we emerge into existence.

By leaving the wood raw, cracked, and visibly assembled, the piece becomes a physical manifestation of Deleuze’s notion of the scar as a productive surface — not a mark of lack, but a site where new meaning can be generated. What we call “I” might simply be the ongoing negotiation with a wound that was already there before we arrived.