rika maya duvel

“Be True To Yourself”',  2021

Be True To Yourself responds to a question that many women are all too familiar with: When are you having children? It’s a question often asked as casually as one might comment on the weather, yet for many, it carries the weight of personal trauma, societal pressure, and the deeply private nature of reproductive choice. 

‘As an introvert, I’ve have been asked this question more times than I can count, and it has always made me uncomfortable. This work is my visual response, a way of reclaiming space and expressing the complex emotions that such a question can provoke.’

The golden symbols featured in the piece are Norse Runes for fertility, anchoring the work in a language of ancient power and meaning.