Collagraph on Paper
Signed and numbered with a certificate of authenticity.
In 2021, my partner Steph was diagnosed with Bipolar and ADHD disorder & late last year she was hospitalised for 6 weeks. Being a partner of someone with a mental illness can be challenging and isolating with feelings of helplessness. As a means of overcoming and understanding these challenges, and the emotions and states that my partner faces, I began a series of artworks to shed awareness on mental illness. The following collagraph is one from the series and is titled ‘Shadows’. It is a self-portrait based on my subjective experience of how it feels to appear calm and collected on the surface, but have a 'darkness', or oppressing feeling hiding just underneath the surface.