The Self That Keeps More Than One Time
People feel divided between their past and present selves because identity does not move through time as one clean line. The person you were before a major change does not simply disappear when the present life begins. Old habits, rooms, languages, relationships, fears, desires, and ways of being seen remain inside the body as traces. This is why I often return to doubled faces, divided figures, layered bodies, and symbolic portraits in my artwork. They show one person holding more than one emotional time inside the same image.
The Past Self As A Hidden Companion
The past self can feel like a hidden companion. It may not control the present, but it still reacts, remembers, compares, and sometimes speaks from underneath. A person may have changed countries, changed work, changed language, changed relationships, or changed the way they understand themselves, yet an older version remains near. In my drawings and art prints, this often appears through repeated faces or mirrored bodies. One figure belongs to the present, while another seems to carry the unfinished atmosphere of what came before.
Why Change Creates Inner Distance
Change creates inner distance because the mind needs time to understand who it has become. Life can move faster than identity. A person may already live in a new situation, but emotionally still be catching up with it. This is especially clear after emigration, loss, transformation, or starting over. The present self acts, adapts, and continues, while the past self remains connected to older meanings. In symbolic wall art, a divided body can hold this pause between what has changed outside and what is still being reorganised inside.
Memory And The Shape Of The Old Self
Memory does not preserve the past exactly. It edits, softens, sharpens, and rearranges it. This means the past self is partly real and partly symbolic. It is made from what happened, but also from what the present self needs to remember. A childhood room, a former city, an old relationship, or an earlier version of courage can become more charged over time. In my posters and drawings, repeated motifs often behave this way. Eyes, flowers, borders, dark backgrounds, and mirrored faces return like memory: changed by the present, but still carrying their original trace.
The Present Self Is Still Forming
The present self can feel unstable because it is still forming. It may look more complete from outside than it feels from within. You may have new routines, new language, new choices, and a new life, while still wondering whether the old self has been honoured, abandoned, or misunderstood. This tension does not mean the person is broken. It means identity is layered. A symbolic portrait can show this more honestly than a direct statement: one face visible, another half-hidden, both belonging to the same person.
The Tenderness Of Being Many Versions
There can be tenderness in recognising that we are many versions at once. The past self may carry innocence, survival, mistakes, longing, or a way of seeing that the present self still needs. The present self may carry distance, clarity, choice, and a different kind of strength. These versions do not have to cancel each other. They can become part of a wider inner structure. In my artwork, duality often appears not as a simple split, but as coexistence: two faces, two directions, one body learning how to hold several truths.
Why Divided Selves Belong In Symbolic Art
Divided selves belong in symbolic art because the feeling is visual before it is logical. It is a face remembering another face, a body carrying an earlier room, a present life still shadowed by what shaped it. For me, this theme naturally enters my artwork, posters, art prints, drawings, symbolic portraits, and wall art because my visual language already returns to doubling, memory, repetition, borders, and transformation. Feeling divided between past and present selves is not only a fracture. It can also be the sign of a life deep enough to contain more than one version of becoming.
