Contained Chaos, 2019, mixed media installation

For my degree show I was interested in creating a space that illustrates and illuminates my daily battles with mental illness (bipolar and ADHD). I first began by writing on all surrounding walls and the floor notes and journal entries that I had kept on my phone throughout the last year. The writing is in no particular, as my thoughts are often jumbled and chaotic as well. The paintings and plinths that are within the space each revolve around different anxieties that I face day-to-day, such as the pressure of becoming a "successful" painter, love and relationships, finances, human rights (gun laws having more rights than womens' in America) and several other issues that plague me every day. The chaotic mess that sits upon these paintings additionally represents the chaos of my mind and lack of attention that I have at any give moment. The sculptures placed upon the plinths represent the relationship between strength and fragility that the mind has. How at any given moment it can "tip over" and break even while it may be growing and blooming. The space is overwhelming, chaotic, contradictory, confusing, and almost unsettling, just like the mind.