“Woman is not a flower” is a visual and emotional statement — a refusal to accept the long-standing metaphor of the woman as a delicate, ornamental bloom. A woman is not a flower.
In this painting, I explore the contrast between external expectations and inner reality. While the image draws from the floral — soft, beautiful, cultivated — it subverts the metaphor. A woman is not an object to be tended or admired. She feels. She thinks. She chooses her own path. Her beauty lies not in fragility, but in autonomy, strength, and spiritual freedom.
This piece is rooted in my own story. I was raised to be pleasing — to care for others’ feelings, to strive for approval, to prioritize outer beauty over inner truth. I grew up performing the role of the “pretty girl,” learning to view myself through others’ eyes. But over time, I began to unravel that conditioning. I started to see the deeper structures — the sexism, the silencing, the expectation that a woman must bloom only under someone else's care.
Now I know: a woman is not a passive being, not a decoration, not someone else’s ideal. She is alive. She is powerful. And her blossoming comes from within.