Surrender to Love
22× 30 in
Charcoal and Chalk Pastel on Paper
“ I reach out my hand to you.
Holding on to my faith that all you are still exists.
i will experience your best outcome.
i won’t be loves exception.”
- tylar knox
ABOUT THIS PIECE
Surrender to Love explores the choice to remain open to love despite knowing the pain that can come with it. To surrender to love is to accept its uncertainty, allowing yourself to experience it fully without letting the possibility of hurt keep you from reaching for it.
Existing in the tension between hope and fear, Surrender to Love asks: Can we surrender to love even when we know it has the power to hurt us?
I created Surrender to Love from my own struggle with wanting love while knowing how deeply it can hurt. There are parts of me that want to protect myself from experiencing that pain again, but I don't want fear to decide what I'm allowed to experience. I still believe in what love can be, and I want to experience all of it. Surrender to Love is my choice to keep reaching for love, knowing the risk, and refusing to believe that I will be love's exception.
MUSIC INSPIRATION
Ain't No Way
Aretha Franklin
Surrender to Love began with the longing I hear in Ain't No Way. There is so much vulnerability in the song, a desire to give yourself fully to love despite the fear and uncertainty that can come with it. I wanted the figure to carry that same yearning.
That feeling shaped the reaching hand and the expression on her face, which holds both fear and willingness. She knows the pain that can come with opening herself to love, but reaches for it anyway. The song helped me visualize surrender as choosing to remain open to love despite knowing what it can cost.
The open hand represents willingness. Despite the uncertainty that comes with love, the figure is still reaching toward it, allowing herself to receive it rather than retreating from it. The openness of the palm makes her vulnerable. She isn't protecting herself or grasping for control. She's offering herself to the possibility.
The longing and yearning in her face represents the desire for love existing alongside fear of it. She wants what she's reaching toward, but she understands what allowing it in could mean.
The expression isn't purely painful or hopeful. It holds both, which is really the entire point of Surrender to Love: fear doesn't disappear before surrender happens. The willingness exists alongside it.