Even in broad daylight, the world often appeared unusually dim and dark to me. I am not exaggerating, nor am I using poetic language. This is simply how I experienced it at the time.
A few years later, in 2016, a doctor diagnosed me with dissociative fugue.
Interestingly, I only learned relatively recently that such a diagnosis had actually been written down.
Not long afterward, I found myself repeatedly booking flights abroad and leaving without much planning, over and over again.
The signature on this painting was a pseudonym I used for a brief period of about a year. Eventually, I found little reason to use any name other than the one I had been given at birth.
Having not painted for nearly ten years, I found myself picking up a brush again during one of the hardest periods of my life. As it turned out, it would be the last painting I ever made.
Looking Back,
Honestly, When I painted this watercolor, I could hardly see what lay ahead in my life.
Yet at the same time, I was overwhelmed by nostalgia for my previous travels.
Among the photographs I had taken while traveling across Europe the year before, one place stood above all others: Venice, Italy. For a very long time, Venice was my No. 1 destination of all time, and even now it remains among the highest-ranked places I have ever visited.
As I looked through those photographs, I chose the image that drew my attention most strongly and decided to paint it.
ᴀᴜɢᴜꜱᴛ 𝟤𝟦, 𝟤𝟢𝟣𝟦, ᴀᴛ 𝟤:𝟦𝟫 ᴀᴍ The reason I chose this particular photograph was actually quite simple.
I was in darkness.
Really.
Back then, even reading ordinary text had become difficult for me.
I tried to immerse myself in colorful photographs of Europe—the kind of images that still carried excitement and longing for me—but even then, objects and scenes seemed unable to register clearly in my mind.
While living through those symptoms, I was revisiting the photographs from my 2013 trip to Venice when one image suddenly struck me with unusual force.
It was this one.
During the actual trip, I had seriously considered buying that Pinocchio mask. In the end, however, I had to settle for keeping only its image—captured in this photograph and later preserved in this painting.
Today, after many years,
I have recovered substantially from the strange symptoms I experienced back then.
These days, things no longer need to be as striking or visually overwhelming as that Pinocchio image in order to leave a meaningful impression on me.
Ironically, my eyesight at the time was excellent.
In standard vision tests, I could read almost every line on the chart except for the very smallest letters at the bottom. Both eyes measured far beyond the standard 1.0 benchmark, with exceptionally sharp distance vision.
And yet, everything in front of me seemed dark.
ᴀᴜɢᴜꜱᴛ 𝟤𝟦, 𝟤𝟢𝟣𝟦, ᴀᴛ 𝟦:𝟣𝟢 ᴀᴍ
Now, more than a decade later, my eyesight may be slightly weaker than it was back then. But I see a brighter world than I did at that time. To repeat, I am not speaking metaphorically. This was not a figure of speech. It was an actual symptom I experienced at the time.
Looking back,
I am adding these photographs as a remembrance—images I took on the day I first saw that Pinocchio mask in Venice, Italy, on June 27, 2013.
All photographs were taken by me on ᴊᴜɴᴇ 𝟤𝟩, 𝟤𝟢𝟣𝟥, ɪɴ ᴠᴇɴɪᴄᴇ, ɪᴛᴀʟʏ.
Today, I no longer need something as intensely stimulating as that Pinocchio mask to capture my attention.
ᴀᴜɢᴜꜱᴛ 𝟤𝟦, 𝟤𝟢𝟣𝟦, ᴀᴛ 𝟨:𝟣𝟦 ᴀᴍ
Over the years, I have recovered enough to appreciate the full spectrum of colors this Earth has to offer, even in ordinary things. I am no longer fascinated by Pinocchio.
And finally, as it turns out,
the mask I actually bought in Italy was not the Pinocchio mask that would later become one of the very few images that stood out clearly to me during the strange symptoms I experienced after that trip. (ᴊᴜɴᴇ 𝟤𝟪, 𝟤𝟢𝟣𝟥, ᴠᴇɴɪᴄᴇ, ɪᴛᴀʟʏ)
