Un-CTRL-ed

Description

This piece was born from a season where music held me together. Where each verse felt like balm, each melody a breath I didn’t know I needed. SZA’s voice became a bridge between my breaking and my rebuilding— a place to lay the heaviness down and simply exist. Un-CTRL-ed is my offering back to that light. She is not SZA—she is the echo of what her music helped me become. A woman soft but unshaken, sitting atop the ghosts of old technology and the noise that once tried to command her every move. Wires coil at her feet like memories, invasive yet no longer powerful. Those outdated monitors—symbols of pressure, of expectation, of the world’s demand to perform— now serve as her throne. Flowers bloom where control once lived. Lilies and tangled stems push through circuitry, reminding us that even in dark, artificial places, growth can find a way. Her body is relaxed, her dress loose and unstructured— she is not being shaped by the world around her, she is shaping herself from the inside out. The colors rise and fall like emotion— rust and rose, teal and muted gold, a palette built like memory: layered, imperfect, alive. This painting is a tribute not just to an artist, but to survival through sound. To the quiet nights where music steadied shaking hands, to lyrics that felt like someone whispering I see you. Keep breathing. Un-CTRL-ed is my gratitude made visible— a visual hymn for the moments when art, in any form, saves us. She stands as proof that we do not need to be perfect, polished, or “fully programmed” to be whole. Sometimes, the most powerful version of ourselves is the one that grows despite the wires.