My first piece highlights the beginning of the trap, also known as addiction. I used acrylic paint on canvas to create a fun and colourful pop art piece. This stage can be described as a combination of happiness and confidence in a world that is not real and that does not matter. When I see bright pops of colour I feel a sense of happiness, and I wanted to symbolize the feeling of the world not mattering by using a Pop art style. Pop art also reminds me of youth, which also correlates to identity. When teens go through that identity crisis, they are more prone to experimenting with drugs. By using pop art, I hope to catch their attention and educate them. This piece was inspired by Andy Warhol’s “Lips”.

There is a lot of symbolism in this piece, but the overall reason for this piece is to highlight the confusion of blackouts, and the insanity and obsession a person feels towards a substance. This piece also incorporates the emotional roller coaster that someone in full addiction experiences, including, desire, anger, sadness and jealousy. I created this piece with Coloured pencils on illustration board.

This piece symbolizes the desire of recovery and also the discouragement of relapse. The figure in the bottle represents the addict trapped in the cycle of addiction, and the hand is the small glimpse of hope, representing God and his will of recovery. I created this piece using charcoal on illustration board.