SHEEPSKIN
SOLO EXHIBITION BY
IYAN DE JESUS
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There is a sheepskin draped across the soul, a tender barrier that marks the line between the self that is nurtured and the self that is natural. It is the skin we wear into the world—unknowingly, unwillingly—stitched together by circumstance and expectation. Born into this pasture of impermanence, we arrive with no say in where our roots first taste soil. And yet, the journey, treacherous and tender, awaits us all. Life, like a vast field with hills that swell and valleys that weep, offers paths to those bold enough to wander. And still, for some, this pasture is not meant to hold their bones.
In this place, the ones who dare to tread beyond the limits of familiarity are the outcasts, the ones for whom the pasture is too small, too safe, too flat. Beneath the surface of their sheepskin—soft, woolly, almost docile—there is an ache, a splintering. This is the ache of living in a world too loud for a whisper, too dull for dreams, a world that demands a masquerade of sameness where none exists. Those who wear their natural voice, that shimmering, inconvenient voice, soon learn the discomfort of being noticed—not for brilliance, but for the way it unsettles the status quo.
Such a one has no choice but to grow amidst this discord, to be the shame that shadows another’s pride. It is not enough to be tolerated, to be passed off like an old garment outgrown by its first wearer, as if the rough seams of one’s existence could be overlooked so easily. No, there is no ease in being the misfit, the one who must walk softly through the pasture, fearing the echo of their own footsteps. To stand still is to rot, yet to move forward is to wander farther from the safety of the flock, from the whispers that cling to one’s very name.
And yet, what power resides in the one who strays, in the one who dares to find beauty in impermanence? Like the legacy of Bert Hellinger, who called forth the bold and brave to tear apart the cloak of tradition, one must tear away the sheepskin. The tearing is painful—one cannot deny it. But it is necessary, for beneath that skin lies the truth of self, a self that cannot thrive in the familiar pasture of old.
How strange it is that the grass that glows so green beneath the feet of the many can turn brittle and gray for the few. The same sun that kisses the faces of others barely warms the skin of some. What radiates brilliance for the flock becomes a dull, tasteless thing in the mouth of one who has hungered for more, for different, for something other than what is expected. Sheepskin sings of this hunger—of one’s longing to step out from the half-light, to find a pasture where brilliance is not dulled, where dreams do not wilt beneath the burden of everyone else’s gaze. To wander, to stumble, to rise again—this is the journey of the one who dares to dream. This is the struggle of those who, born into a world too small for their spirit, must carve out their own Graceland amidst the wasteland.
In the end, the sheepskin is not cast aside in shame, but honored for what it once protected—the tender heart, the fragile voice. Yet it is not meant to be all encompassing. There is a place, always a place, where dreams are not aberrations but blueprints for new ways of being.
And so, Sheepskin tells the story of defiance—not of rebellion for rebellion’s sake, but of the quiet, persistent urge to live authentically in a world that demands silence. It is the story of building strength from weakness, of finding beauty in the raw, imperfect self. It is the ode to those who, tired of playing roles that do not fit, have found the courage to stand apart, to dream their own dreams and to seek new pastures where authenticity can bloom without inhibition.
For in the end, there is no shame in standing apart, no shame in dreaming differently. There is only the beauty of being, flaws and all, and the courage to find one’s own way through the pasture, into the light.
