LIBERATED?

If everything that shaped us remains part of us, can we ever be completely free?

The Construction of Freedom

STAGE 05 / 05

I DON'T HAVE TO

I don’t have to
apologise for my body.

Red trousers
are enough of an answer.

I can stop
where others keep walking.

Speak
to someone no one sees.

Listen
until my own desire
has a voice.

I don’t have to hide
what passes through me.

I don’t have to lie
to remain true to myself.

The sky
can stay
where it is.

I don’t even have to
touch the stars.

It is enough
not to lower my eyes.

Barbara Puto, 2026

Freedom is not the absence of what shaped us.
It is deciding what still has the right to shape us

Liberated? / Wyzwolona?
2026

150 × 50 cm

Oil on stretched cotton canvas
Michael Harding, Rembrandt, Schmincke and Van Gogh oil colours
Michael Harding Oil Paint Medium No. 1
Winsor & Newton Artists’ Retouching Varnish
Tools: Traditional painting tools
Software: None used in the creation of the artwork

Final protective varnish will be applied in February 2027, after sufficient curing time.

PROJECT SUMMARY →

Liberated?

What does freedom look like when we cannot erase what made us who we are?

Liberated is the final painting in The Construction of Freedom, but it is not an answer.

The woman moves forward calmly. She is no longer fighting the structures that once confined her. Some have fallen away. Others have left traces. What she has lived through has not disappeared from her body, because liberation does not mean returning to some untouched version of the self.

There is no such self to return to.

We are made from relationships, memories, beliefs, wounds, desires, inherited patterns, and choices. Even when we reject something that once shaped us, the experience of having carried it remains part of our construction.

What changes is not the past.

What changes is who decides what happens next.

The figure no longer needs to tear herself away from everything that has influenced her. She can carry some traces and leave others behind. She moves without the weight of the limitations she has chosen to abandon.

But is she free?

I deliberately leave that question unanswered.

Perhaps freedom is not a final state at all. Perhaps it is the continuing ability to recognize what is acting within us, to question it, and to choose again.

Liberated does not show a woman who has escaped her construction.

It shows a woman who has begun to take authorship of it.

And perhaps that is as close to freedom as we can ever come.

I choose a monumental canvas — 150 × 50 cm, tall and narrow. It feels just right for someone who has struggled with what constrained her and can finally straighten her body and move forward. I begin with a delicate background over the imprimatura, then sketch the figure. There is space now. She can use it.

01. THIS TIME, I GIVE HER ROOM.

I begin building the body with colour. I want her upright, but not rigid — present in the space rather than fighting it. I am still looking for the balance between strength and ease. She should not look victorious. She simply no longer has to shrink herself.

02. FULL SIZE IS BEAUTIFUL.

I build the body in layers, adding and adjusting colour until it begins to gain weight and presence. The hand is more difficult. I keep returning to it, changing the shape, the angle, the tension. It has to feel natural, but it also has to carry intention.

03. THE HAND WILL NOT COOPERATE.

I am working on the whole figure now. She has to stand firmly on her feet. I adjust the legs, the balance of the body and the way she occupies the narrow vertical space. I don't want a heroic pose. Just a body that can finally move forward freely.

04. NO HEROICS. JUST STANDING.

The face and hair still lack character. They have to strengthen what the body is already saying. I want to see victory in her face, but without triumph — something quieter, with humility towards her own decisions. Another challenge. I need to rebuild the features, strengthen the expression and give the hair more individuality. The shoulder and upper arm are still bothering me too. I will add more impasto as well.

05. VICTORY WITHOUT THE THEATRE.

A person cannot become free by discarding everything they have learned to love within themselves. Some structures have to remain — they are foundations. I leave some fragments strong, while others break apart, thin out or fall away. The body begins to change colour. From the legs upwards, I introduce lighter, more open tones — breath, lightness, even joy begin to enter the figure. She is not becoming someone new. She is deciding what she wants to carry with her.