Bio
As a printmaker and artist, I focus on creating work that illustrates the physical and emotional aspects of dealing with mental illness. I use my talents as a visual artist to portray these emotions that are difficult to explain verbally to my viewers in a more explicit way. I create a visual connection between the intangible and the tangible; a connection between an illness that affects the mind and the physical world. Through my process of relief carving and working reductively, I express to my viewers how I interpret my experience living with mental illness and the physical forms that the illness takes. Expressing myself in this way provides a pathway through which I relate to the viewers of my work on a more personal and intimate level. Providing imagery of insects, various plant life, and illustrations of my own hands gives the viewer context to base their understanding of a mental illness upon. I express my emotions and thoughts in this way in order to establish a human connection to the people and the world around me, thus grounding the elusive nature of an illness that primarily exists in the cognitive mind. Through my artistic process, I express my experience in the world to my viewers and thus relate my lived experience to theirs. This relation of experiences provides an opportunity for human connection and allows for a larger conversation about a topic as multifaceted as mental health.
Thesis Statement
Mental illness is a topic that I have always been interested in researching more about and has become the inspiration for the work that I am creating. Through taking psychology classes and dealing with my own mental illness, I have learned about different aspects of mental illness and how it affects the daily life of the person diagnosed with the illness. It fascinates me how mental illness and disorders of the mind can warp and twist personality and change the way a person perceives their life. Throughout my current work, I strive to explore the relationship between the concept of mental illness and how to show it in a more tangible and relatable form. I also address the change that occurs within a person due to a mental illness, whether that change is instantly noticeable or something that occurs silently over time. I have chosen the imagery of insects to be my primary link between the concept of mental illness and its representation because of their fascinating yet repellent nature. While mental illness is something that is common, it is not spoken about as openly as it should be. Similarly, insects surround us constantly but are often times actively avoided and left unaddressed. Showing insects in a more artistic view portrays how I perceive mental illness; something that should be acknowledged and addressed rather than something that is ignored and pushed away. The image of my own hands is frequently present in my illustrations, to represent how I’ve associated the artistic creation process with my own experience living with mental illness.
Through my work, mental illness is shown as something that can be approachable and understood even by those who do not have personal experience with it. Using printmaking techniques, such as silkscreen and reductive relief carving, I present mental illness through a visual medium. Using insects, which are commonplace, to visually represent mental illness helps create a sense that mental illness is also something commonplace, and therefore more understandable. In this way, the work becomes more relatable to a larger audience by instilling a sense of understanding in the viewer.