My work is based on the process of making myself feel better after breaking down. I’ve found that my mental health is often cyclical with good days and bad days and really bad days. Every time I think I have a handle on it, something happens and I break down again and have to put all of my pieces back together. I think that it is important to not only recognize the fact that I am able to build myself back up, but also to appreciate the process of doing so. Every step of the way in a mental health journey is important.

The Breakdown refers to the first step in any mental health journey, which is actually having an issue to build up from. Having some sort of breakdown or another traumatic event often reverts people to their most vulnerable form. I wanted to represent this by having the subject in the piece transition from a more complex style with lots of different colours and line work, to basic shapes and primary colours.

Leave The Light On refers to the first step in the mental health journey that involves healing yourself. After things are really hard, we’re often vulnerable and not yet strong enough to begin building ourselves up. So, sometimes the best thing to do is to just make yourself feel comfortable. This concept is represented by the nightlight. You see, when someone uses a nightlight, they’re not curing their fear of the dark. Instead, they’re just making themselves comfortable enough to sleep, and that’s what matters most.

Frustration is meant to represent the most liberating part of the steps that it takes to feel better. It is the moments where you’re so done with feeling bad and suddenly you’re overwhelmed with feelings of motivation. From then on, all your frustration is used to push yourself forward. It is at this point where the breakthrough occurs, and it finally feels like there is a light at the end of the tunnel. I wanted to represent this by using two contrasting scenes on canvas. For one, an impressionistic style alongside dark colours was used to represent all of the bad times and feelings. For the other, soft, blended colours and simplistic lines were used to represent the euphoric feeling of having hope for the future. Then, the tears within the canvas are representative of all the frustration used for that breakthrough.

Release is meant to be representative of the scariest thing anyone can ever do, which is to give up control. Now, I personally don’t have a very good idea of what it is like to truly face my fears head-on and release all of my control… yet. However, what I do know is the few times where I have unclenched my jaw and allowed for things to be taken care of by themselves, I’ve always been okay in the end. I’m hoping someday I can truly get rid of all my stresses from trying to control everything in my life. I wanted to represent what I feel like the loss of control would give me, which is the loss of all the butterflies in my stomach. The eyes within the piece are meant to represent all of the bad thoughts or people staring, and the vomiting of the butterflies is meant to represent the release regardless of what’s going on. I also allowed myself to release a small amount of my control on this piece by asking my classmates to add on to it whatever they wanted to. By doing this I had no control over my own piece that was about releasing control.