My current body of work explores mental health issues from the sufferers’ perspective. The purpose of my work is not voyeurism or sensationalism, but rather an attempt to help sufferers find a voice. Using symbolism and metaphors inspired by case studies and research, I create and photograph a scene for symptoms and illnesses. I then manipulate and translate this scene into another medium.
Feeling understood is a major component of creating the social support system that is critical for successful recovery from most illnesses. It is my hope that by adding these visual vocabularies to discussions, I can help people obtain the support they need.
Many of the surrealistic worlds that I paint are manipulated using Photoshop. This digital form of surrealism is currently spreading commercially as well as privately, and owes much of its success to the legacy of historical surrealism. I chose to take the photo manipulations that I create and translate them back into more historical mediums of oil painting, printmaking, and charcoal. I felt this conversion to a “traditional” medium is necessary to reengage viewers who have become numb to photo manipulations due to their pervasiveness.