Trapped 

The hardest prisons to escape are the ones built from parts of ourselves.

The Cage

I want to be loved
to be good enough
thin

to know how to say “no”
not to be afraid of my own voice
to go against the current
to believe I can

to touch my own desires

but where is the key
that opens the door?

Barbara Puto, 2020

Where do others end and you begin?

Trapped / Uwięziona
2026

Oil on canvas
70 × 50 cm
From The Construction of Freedom

Personality

Personality is the starting point of The Construction of Freedom.

The central figure is a woman because, in Polish, the word osobowość — personality — is feminine. She is nude, but not erotically so. I wanted to strip the figure of costume, decoration, status and disguise. Personality cannot truly be dressed up or hidden behind a mask.

Her body is unfinished because personality itself is never complete. It continues to change throughout life.

Around and within her, other people begin to appear. They represent those who shape us: the people we love, those who support us, those who hurt us, and even those we merely observe. Their presence is not separate from the central figure. They overlap with her, penetrate her space and become part of her construction.

Her body also takes on different colors. These are the traces of what others leave in us. Some influences are luminous, others darker; some are accepted unconsciously, while others become part of who we are through our own choices.

The figure remains brighter than her surroundings. She has her own light.

For me, this painting asks the first question of the entire project: if so much of who we are has been formed by others, where does our own self begin?

I begin with an imprimatura. I already know she will be lighter than her surroundings. Personality needs its own light.

01. The beginning

She has to be nude — not erotically, but honestly. Personality cannot be dressed up, decorated or hidden behind a mask

02. The body

I deliberately leave the body incomplete. Personality is never finished; it continues to change throughout our lives.

03. Unfinished

Other people begin to enter the painting. They are not a background. They are becoming part of her.

04. Others appear

Her body takes on different colors. The people who shape us leave different shades within us — some luminous, some dark, some consciously chosen.

05. Their colors

The figures overlap. Boundaries dissolve. I no longer know exactly where the others end and she begins.

06. Personality