This body of work explores the concept of dissociation, and the struggle of learning to grapple with it. For many years I have dealt with these complex feelings that I fought to make sense of let alone put into words. After my recent discovery of Fernando Pessoa’s “The Book of Disquiet”, a novel which reckons with depersonalization and metaphysics, I felt understood and inspired. In this series I aim to disrupt the concept of traditional self-portraiture by challenging the idea of what a finished piece of art is meant to look like. Through 15 pieces I portray different components of the human figure and varying symbols and shapes which hold meaning to me.  Each work lives on a 22” x 30” piece of highly textured cold-pressed paper. I utilized various wet and dry media such as watercolor paint, charcoal, sanguine charcoal, and colored pencils.

These works serve as a series of meditative processes. I feel like I am living behind my eyes, like I am in a play written by someone else. The viewer is witnessing little moments of truth to my purpose, as I am opening myself up to discovery. This series favors image exploration over execution. I hate words. I struggle to string thoughts into sentences. My tongue gets tied, and these indescribable feelings sit and ruminate at the forefront of my brain. They rot. They beg to be fleshed out into the physical realm. Image creation is my mother tongue.

I chose a limited color palette and began with watercolor in blue and brown to create a background on every page. I relied heavily on automatic mark-making especially in the beginning stages. I ritualized each painting session and reframed them as grounding exercises. This helped me to not be overly critical of myself and the art. To further aid in my physical grounding, I painted with my fingers and hands. I then began to draw overtop the paintings with differing sizes of vine, sanguine and white charcoal. I include various aspects of my physical being that I feel are iconic to me, such as my accessories, hair, and body modifications. There are also more vague and generalized portrayals of the human figure. I have chosen to render these components in a wide range of abstraction, from fully refined subjects with lots of depth to ‘barely there’ suggestive marks and lines. These distorted figures serve as visual aids in communicating these convoluted feelings. I continued to layer, to push back the drawings and bring them forward again. I switched between painting and drawing and additive and subtractive methods. I also included minimal text where it felt necessary. I repeated this process until the piece felt resolved, like it had nothing else to communicate to me.

A series of artistic epiphanies; they flow through me in a symphony of speeds and rhythms. They lack judgement. I am the composer, conductor, orchestra, and the audience.