2020 · The Retreat
An Interrupted Chapter
After the dense record of 2019, the visible rhythm narrowed in 2020. There were fewer photographs, less outward momentum, and more that remained private or unfinished. Instead of advancing steadily toward the world he imagined, TheIssa drew further inside it.
Isolation, uncertainty, and fatigue took space that might otherwise have gone into making the work public. Withdrawal offered protection when life felt too heavy to hold in view. It also delayed the habits, collaborations, releases, and performance preparation that could have given his creative life a steadier shape.
The change in this chapter was an uncomfortable recognition, not a triumphant escape. The same privacy that sheltered the artist could keep him out of reach. Even the Sleeping Dragon image began to feel different: hidden power was not the same thing as power being used.
He had endured, and the unfinished pieces were still there. Returning did not require him to call the retreat a failure. It required noticing when protection had begun to resemble disappearance—and finding a way back before the private world became the only place the work could live.