Marlena Urban

Dysmorphia, 2021, Oil on canvas, 30 x 24″

My oil painting focuses on the feeling of body dysmorphia through the perspective of the affected person. I found the idea from one of Oliver Sacks’ stories from “The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales.” The story is about a man who didn’t believe the leg attached to his body was his own. He fell out of the bed while attempting to dislocate it from himself. While reading this story, I felt a connection to my own body dysmorphia in which I feel alienated from my own body. In both instances, one simply does not know what their body looks like until an outside source confirms it.

URECA