Anxiety

After previously working on Feminism and Child Sexualisation, I wanted this project to have a more personal focus. This led me to 'Anxiety', due to my experience as a teenager. I knew I wanted my work to be powerful and it needed to be dark, but I had to decide on the form and how best to translate my ideas. I looked for inspiration from several artists, but it was the work of contemporary artist, Annette Messager, which motivated me at this stage. Her piece, 'My Wishes', (1988-1991), stood out because of its layering, scale and sombre quality. These were all elements I intended to include within this project.

I felt that the form of my final piece should take on the appearance of mutating cells, to represent a key trigger of my anxiety, the death of my Aunty, due to cancer. To achieve this, I chose to work in a patchwork style, where each patch represented a cell. I also wanted it to appear as chaotic as my mind during my anxiety and decided a single medium would not do this. Therefore, I experimented with various media before I was happy with my final combination. The individual cells are made from a variety of techniques, which include photography, reverse transfer, black ink, bleach, latex, netting and spray paint. The images of my eyes are a reminder of how I hid my emotions and thoughts, in an attempt to appear 'normal'. The flesh-like latex demonstrates how I am exposing my personal life to the viewer and the dark colour palette accurately mirrors this unhappy and difficult time. At this point, I felt it was still lacking something. However, after further artist research, I discovered an untitled piece (1995), by Kiki Smith, which featured a naked woman curled up in the foetal position. Further research into this helped me make an immediate connection, which led me to photographing myself in this position to include it as one of my patches. Also, the unfinished edge of this piece alludes to this idea of having the potential to increase and spiral out of control.

 Consequently, by sharing my own personal experience with the viewer, I am communicating with other anxiety sufferers and inviting them to confront their own issues.