Mental Health

Art Work

Art and Text provided by Poudre High School Graduate Chase Nelson

Hi, my name is Chase Nelson and I graduated PHS in 2022. I am also non-binary and use they/them/theirs pronouns. I plan on receiving a Masters in psychology and then continue on into med school to study to become a psychiatrist. I also plan to minor in fine arts as I still will continue with art in my career.

I know how important mental health is and how even small things can set one-off. I know because I have been there, I have struggled through every intrusive thought in my head. I plan to pursue a career in psychiatry as I want to help people who are like me, who are struggling with their mental health, and who want to receive help. My goal is to help others thrive to live better lives.

This artwork is part of Chase's IB Art Portfolio.

This exhibition is a representation of the stigma on mental health. The idea came to me as I wanted to continue my theme of creating projects based on mental illness. Ever since my sophomore year when I was admitted to a psychiatric hospital, I realized how many people struggle mentally, and so I decided to dedicate all my school work (essays, presentations, and this exhibition) to people who are struggling to find help or speak up about their struggles. I want everyone to understand that mental health is health and should not be ignored or left untreated. By looking at all of the pieces created, I intend to show my audience that this is what mental illness looks like. It can make us severely depressed, and severely angry, and obtain extreme anxiety among other symptoms by which leaving left untreated can have serious side effects. My whole goal in life is to become a psychiatrist and to help others come to terms with their mental illness.

For all of my pieces, I used a variety of mediums (charcoal, colored pencil, chalk pastel, acrylic paint, watercolor paint, alcohol markers, digital, graphite) and each piece uses these mediums to sort of represent the mental illness that is shown. With my watercolor pieces (Bipolar Disorder and Social Anxiety), I had to be messy for these to further represent the illnesses, and watercolor can have a dripping/messy look to it as it is such a free-roaming medium to use. Other mediums like colored pencils or chalk pastels were easier to use as I have a lot more experience with them and wanted to use them to create a neater approach to the illness. The mediums are not the only artistic approach that I used for this exhibition, I explored the motif of the struggle of one’s illness a lot before even starting a piece. I interviewed each person I based pieces on and asked them questions regarding their mental health. It was extremely saddening to hear everyone's story and struggle with living with their mental illness. The theme of this exhibition was to discard the stigma around mental health and I do believe that I have reached that theme pretty well. Each piece shows the deep struggle within everyone, including myself as there are three pieces of me in there too. My favorite pieces that I have created are Bipolar Disorder and Piece by Piece as both show a deep struggle and interpret different meanings of how each person goes through living with their mental illness.

Setting up my artwork, I decided to put my four largest pieces on the sides and my smaller pieces in the middle. I decided that the larger ones show a lot more emotion. With people walking by, the exhibition follows the rule of thirds in a way as it makes your eyes lead from each side of the boards to the middle. My smallest pieces are quite different in what they represent compared to the larger ones. The way I laid out my pieces does not have to do with the theme of my exhibition, it is solely for visual placement for the audience. Having a good visual placement also helped with creating a story for each piece as the placement of each piece leads the viewer's eyes throughout my exhibition. For each piece to be pleasing to the naked eye, I wanted to use a wide variety of colors. Using different mediums helped me reach the variety I needed when I was finished with each piece. Just for the art show, I have three extra pieces which make the exhibition more visually pleasing to viewers. These three extra pieces are of me and I will not be showing them in the slideshow. This was an extremely emotional project as I am someone who also struggles with mental illness. Creating each piece made me feel more connected to the person I was basing the piece on and helped me realize that there are a lot more people out there that are struggling than you believe.

Anxiety and Depression (March 2022)

38cm x 53½ cm: Colored Pencil

Description: I wanted to incorporate anxiety and depression in this piece to give it more of a unique approach to how the person is struggling. The pieces coming out of their face show the disconnect that one can feel with depression. The dripping effects can show how anxiety can take you away from doing the things that you love.

Social Anxiety Disorder (Feb 2022)

37 ½ cm x 53cm: Watercolor Paints

Description: This piece is a representation of someone living with social anxiety. I decided to make a smearing effect to make it look as if they are being pulled away from their social life. Using watercolor for this piece was a difficult decision as it was pretty difficult to overlap the smearing. The various colors show how scattered this disorder can cause one to become.

Insomnia (Sept 2021)

45cm x 59cm: Chalk Pastel

Description: This piece represents insomnia. I did not edit the reference photo. The subject has a look of despair and sadness on their face as if they have not gotten enough sleep. Insomnia was sort of difficult to represent as it seems to look a lot like depression. I decided to add the SLEEP across the face to show what this person needs the most. The outlines around the subject's head help give it sort of a frame, emphasizing the despair on their face.

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

(Jan 2022)

38cm x 45½ cm : Acrylic Paint

Description: This piece represents how attention deficit hyperactivity disorder can feel to a person. There is a juxtaposition between the blue flame and the orange flame which show how conflicting this disorder can be to someone who lives with it. I wanted to make this painting seem as chaotic as possible. This piece is different from the others as this person is smirking and crying at the same time which can also be juxtaposed.

Gender Dysphoria (Nov 2021)

28½ cm x 43½ cm : Alcohol Markers

Description: This piece represents a sort of unusual and new mental disorder as it was added to the DSM-5 in 2013. I wanted to show a sort of half of them that they hate (left) and the other half that causes gender euphoria (right). I meant to make the face look glitchy and confused as that is how gender dysphoria can make one feel. The wording on the hair shows how much one can dislike themselves when feeling dysphoric.

Major Depressive Disorder (Jan 2022)

27 cm x 45½ cm: Chalk Pastel

Description: This piece is a representation of major depressive disorder. I wanted to take a different approach to this one than many would think. I came up with the idea to draw a giant hole in the middle of the face. I wanted to make this piece pretty monotoned since depression can definitely make one feel numb. The sad faces in the background were a last-minute decision to help bring out the depression in this piece even more.

Disassociation & Depersonalization (Dec 2021)

34½ cm x 39½ cm: Graphite + Acrylic Paint Pens

Description: Dissociation/depersonalization can show a disconnect from the body. I started with graphite and drew the person first before anything else. After finishing with the graphite, I went over the face with three different colors to show a sort of disconnecting glitch. The glitch shows the dissociation that they feel when it hits them, making the world not feel real or even themselves.

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (Oct 2021)

35½ cm x 32½ cm : Digital

Description: This piece shows the effects that PTSD can cause. The reflection shows how the person is battling their past trauma. I wrote TRAUMA on the forehead to show how this person can struggle deeply with themselves and their past. The two heads are stretching the boundaries between them which can represent the want to escape their past, yet they are unable to.

Bipolar Disorder (Sept 2021)

35cm x 39 1/2 cm: Watercolor Paints

Description: This piece shows the struggles that one can deal with when dealing with Bipolar Disorder. Both sides of their face show both symptoms of Bipolar Disorder. The left side shows the messiness the disorder can cause. The right side shows the more “happy” side of the disorder. Using watercolor for this piece really helped make it more emotional as I used vibrant colors to make all the facial features stand out.

Generalized Anxiety Disorder (Oct 2021)

25cm x 32½ cm: Colored Pencil + Acrylic Paint Pens

Description: This piece shows the effects that anxiety can cause. The scribbles above the head represent how anxiety causes a large amount of overthinking. With anxiety, comes depression and the smeared makeup and bruises show the effects that depression has when mixed with anxiety. Using colored pencils really helped me put a lot of detail into this piece to make it represent GAD as much as possible.

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