Alina Papazova

This ceramic sculpture Fairytales Rarely Hold the Whole Truth stems from a simple but unsettling realization: things are never quite what they seem. The work begins with the personal - a moment of internal conflict - and turns toward the symbolic, through the archetypal figures of the witch and the princess. These fairy tale roles, so deeply embedded in our cultural consciousness, offer a seemingly clear moral dichotomy: the princess is good and beautiful, the witch is evil and grotesque. Yet, under closer scrutiny, these roles blur. The piece explores how both internal and external tensions can collapse these categories. In life, as in this work, the princess and the witch are not so different - they can become versions of one another, shaped by circumstance, emotion, and perception. The princess, here, holds a knife - a gesture of agency and defiance. The witch offers an apple - a symbol of both gift and deceit. They stand in confrontation, but not in caricature. Neither is fully innocent, nor fully monstrous. The sculpture challenges the viewer to look beyond surface appearances and consider how identity, morality, and even "goodness" are fluid, unstable, and often contradictory