Be yourself
There is no one like you. There has never been anyone like you. There shall never be anyone like you. Therefore, know yourself. Be yourself. Authenticity is everything.
Art, at its core, is the radical act of being oneself—unfiltered, unapologetic, and wholly singular. The same could be said about life. In the grand, chaotic gallery of existence, every person is an original work. There is no duplicate, no reproduction, no limited edition. There is no one like you. There has never been anyone like you. There shall never be anyone like you.
This is the essence of authenticity, and it applies as much to art as it does to the artist. The greats—Basquiat, Frida, Louise Bourgeois, Ai Weiwei—didn’t ask permission to be themselves; they simply were. Their work was an extension of their being, a raw and often defiant declaration of their singularity. Their brushstrokes, sculptures, and installations were not about fitting in but about breaking through.
Authenticity is terrifying. It demands vulnerability. It means embracing every jagged edge and imperfect curve of your existence. But here’s the truth: the world does not need another copy, another echo, another artist trying to replicate the already-done. It needs you—your weirdness, your contradictions, your unpolished, unrepeatable self.
So, the real challenge is not just knowing yourself but having the courage to be yourself. To create not for approval, but from instinct. To stop sanding down the edges to fit neatly into someone else’s frame. To understand that the work of art that is you is already complete, already valid, already worthy.
After all, in a world oversaturated with replicas, the most radical thing you can do is be the masterpiece only you can be.
