Fragmented Self – Olive & Grey | Markers on Paper (2023) 图画 由 Nolan Trace

Derealisation-depersonalisation syndrome is a condition in which a person feels unrealistic about themselves or the world around them, as if everything is happening in a dream or in a film.
At the centre of the work are two interconnected figures representing the fragmentation of the personality. One embodies autopsychic depersonalisation - the detachment from emotions and sense of self - depicted through a dried up tree penetrating the brain, linked to the all-seeing eye as a metaphor for deja vu and inner observation.
The second figure expresses somatopsychic depersonalisation, bodily detachment: the hand seems unnaturally distant, elongated and numb. Fine needles pierce the ear, referring to the rare but documented phenomenon of jamais entendu, an eerie sensation in which familiar sounds seem new and unknown.
Both figures are surrounded by a glass ball, symbolising derealisation. Inside the ball, the architecture retains depth and normality; outside, the world disintegrates into flat, surreal distortions - warped windows, abstract geometry - capturing an altered perception of reality. In a circle, the text refers to key phenomenological terms: jamais entendu, jamais ressenti and déjà vécu.
Time itself is discontinuous: a clock with double frozen hands immersed in ice visualises the sense of suspended or non-linear time that is often noted in dissociative states.
This work combines clinical precision with symbolic surrealism, fusing psychiatry and visual art.

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Surrealist ArtConceptual DrawingFigurative SurrealismPsychological ArtMental Health Artwork