She has no name. Her existence is not in doubt

Is it worth portraying someone who is nobody?

I asked myself that in the studio, and then I made the image anyway.

The doubt keeps returning in another form too: why make art about what is already obvious? That only repeats what we know. A picture should be intriguing. It should raise a question and hold you there long enough for you to answer it yourself.

So here she is. Mrs Nobody.

Her existence is not in doubt. Only her name is missing. She gazes at something only she can see — I don't know what it is either. I didn't decide it. She is completely immersed in the blue alchemy of her own body's colour.

Her hands are folded. Concentration — or inaction?

Her head is bowed. Deep thought — or a tinge of sadness?

I leave that to you.

She is a monotype, which means she went through the press once. One pass, one print, and no second copy — whatever the paper took that day is what she is. It suits her. A person nobody can name, existing exactly once.

Because that is the truth I wanted to set down: Mrs Nobody lives inside many of us. Anonymous, overlooked, quietly full of an inner life that no one asks about.

I have been printing people like her for years. Ordinary, unremarkable, easy to walk past. I keep returning to them because they are the ones nobody portrays, and because standing in front of one of them, some people recognise themselves.

[ See Mrs Nobody in the gallery → ] https://www.malexanderartgallery.com/artwork/mrs-nobody

Monotype on paper, 50 × 35 cm. One of a kind, signed, with a certificate of authenticity.

— Jolanta