When I first saw 2020, I was 25, and it was summertime, and I got of 2019 in a new dress, which had seemed very smart in 2020 but seemed less smart already... all the stories I had ever read about 2020 informed me that it would never be quite the same again. In fact in never was.

“Birthday marks the beginning of the lock down as it approached only days before my birthday. Before the pandemic, birthdays are used to gather close friends around the table, each dressed for the occasion, each bringing food to the table with stories to share; birthdays, while not necessarily my own, are my favorite occasion. The original image comes from the fabric of the dress that I would have worn to celebrate my 26th.

A dress, looking back, seemed like just another petty thing to be sad about: it had no more use. What now? For the next month we would be sat wrapped in blankets and later learn that one month turned into another, and another, and another. 10 months. Days were now patterned after the other and time didn't seem to stop: endless. I felt like an M.C. Escher painting. A day within a day within a day. A distorted reality. A warped sense of time.

The dress is packed away and gathering dust. 2020 should do the same.”

Jessica de Leon (b. 1994 Manila, Philippines) received her BFA in Painting from the University of the Philippines Diliman. Through visual art, she explores patterns and its relationship to trauma and recovery through commonplace things, objects, or representations. De Leon's mediums range from paper, watercolor, and oil on canvas.