The Empty Cage

The graphic work depicts a winged young woman holding an empty birdcage in her hand. Birds fly freely around her, and the surrounding space is open, without visible barriers.
The cage has lost both its function and its scale: it is too small for her, like a form of past experience that no longer corresponds to her present state. Yet her gesture preserves it — not out of necessity, but out of the inertia of memory. Freedom has already occurred as a fact, but has not yet become an inner skill. Her wings are open, her body is ready to move, yet her hand still holds what no longer has power over her. The empty cage becomes a sign of lived restriction that continues to exist not in outer space, but within the person — as a trace, a habit, a cautious pause before flight.