Everyone deals with their own personal anxieties everyday; the struggle is real. For some, these worries can be overwhelming, consuming, and inescapable. Powerfully negative thoughts can break someone. And it doesn’t matter how irrational the thoughts are. For me, these emotions has its highs and lows. There are periods of time where the anxiety is high and fast, scattering thoughts in every direction, like a manic. There are periods of low, which happen soon after the high, where my mind is exhausted and grey like a fog has settled in. Even that is as difficult as the highs; it can be all consuming but completely internal. My paintings express the turmoil of inward emotion guided by color and mark. Not only is it also important just to portray such emotions, but also be able to impose these anxieties upon the viewer.
This series is focused completely on myself and the effects of constant daily worries upon how I view myself. Three times a week for three months I made a few journal entries describing my thoughts, feelings, senses, colors, and even things that bring me to a calm. Instead of relying upon my normal “therapies” such as smoking and drinking, I cut them off and left myself to face these anxieties everyday. Using a brush to focus on mark making, which was less of a formal aspect, but rather mostly guided by content. The overall style of these paintings remain fairly consistent with each portrait having its own set color pallette, lighting, positioning of the face within the space, and clarity depending upon the journal entries and feelings for that time. Completed, they hang in chronological order on a single wall, thus overimposing three months worth of anxieties upon the viewer. |