Artist Statement- Final Exhibition

This piece is a large-scale, motorised. layered illustration exploring the theme of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD).
It depicts a state of mind. The ferris wheel in the centre houses eight different identities of the same person, rotating constantly into states of paradise and abyss. BPD is a disorder of mood, and how a person interacts with others. In this piece I have tried to represent some of the main symptoms of the illness. There are nine criteria that need to be met for a diagnosis: Intense and unstable relationships, Fear of being left alone, Unstable sense of self, Engaging in impulsive and/or dangerous activities, Self-harm and/or suicide attempts, Severe mood swings, Long term feelings of emptiness, Sudden and intense feelings of anger and Dissociation. Unstable sense of self is seen in the eight personalities of the wheel, self-harm and suicide are represented in the drawings outside- the image of ‘death’ and the cut arm, severe mood swings is the turning of the wheel etc.
The illustration is black and white. The reason behind this is people with the disorder often experience the world in ‘Black and White’, seeing things as either good or evil, love or hate, idealising a person or seeing them as malicious etc. Nothing is just okay, indifferent or ‘Grey’. The act of cutting the board as well as nailing on the illustrations feel like quite angry acts and reflect well the content of the piece.
The main idea behind my work is personifying BPD. Translating something into an image is always a challenge, especially when it is a state of mind- however it helps people to understand better. Most people can relate to an image more than a diagnosis, or a dictionary definition. My hope is that my piece will bring BPD awareness and help non-sufferers to empathise.
My interest in this subject comes primarily from a personal experience with the disorder, I am constantly aware that I am experiencing the world differently to those around me, and by putting this into a physical image that everyone else can see makes me feel more heard. As well as phycological curiosity.
The style of illustration came naturally to me, but there are parallels between Tim Burton’s drawing style and my own. Burton has always been a huge inspiration to me and there is evidence of him in everything I create. The piece is also informed by Dominic McGill; his work is black and white and on a huge scale. Although his work is decidedly political, I enjoyed the fact that he uses hundreds of small drawings to fill up a big space- which encouraged me to move my practise onto a larger scale. The layered illustration came from ‘shadow box’ art. I first saw the shadow box concept in the Rijksmuseum, Gerrit Schouten. I was mesmerised by this layering effect, and how almost sculptural his work was. I have always admired the art of storytelling, and this technique did it well. The question from there was ‘what story did I want to tell?

 

 

A Tim Burton illustration

Dominic McGill, He Results As Cause Of Himself (2010)

Spring term Exhibition

This is the stage this piece got up to for the week 10 exhibition. I am happy with the outcome although I would have liked ore illustrations around the wheel so there are less white gaps. I would also like the wheel to move more fluently without and risk of it getting caught on anything.

During group criticism, it was suggested to me to make it into a giant book, however that would create the assumption that this is a fictional scene and I don’t what it to be read that way.

I also need to stick the illustrations on with more stable things as the double sided sticky pads fell down.

I would also like to find a way to make the wheel move slowly and constantly by itself.

Romanticising Suicide

This is another black and white, layered illustration. This time the paper being black and the pen being white.

The poem to the left is one I’ve almost fetishised since my early teens. A big symptom of BPD is constant suicidal thoughts, with 46- 96% attempting suicide and 10% succeeding.

From my own experience and from what I’ve heard from other people with the disorder- suicide is radically romanticised. Seen as an escape, a way out, the end of all suffering.

Obviously misguided ideals but hard to get away from nonetheless.

This is what this drawing is trying to portray.

The demon inside

This is my first moving piece

Viva

‘Hi. I thought I’d start by showing you my latest completed piece ‘A Black and White view of the World’.

‘These are shadow boxes. Different layers of illustration are spaced from front to back of the box-frames, creating depth and adding another dimension. I have used pen and ink in a surrealist style’.

‘These were my first ever attempts at shadow-boxing. its a bit difficult to see in an image, but I painted each layer individually and raised each one higher with foam pads. Although I enjoyed the effect of the box, the content wasn’t resonating enough with me.

All of my previous work has been about mental illness and the personification of it. I wanted to incorporate this into a shadow-box format. I decided to focus on one particular illness’.

‘Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), also known as unstable personality disorder, is a chronic mental illness defined by long-term patterns of abnormal behaviour characterised by unstable relationships, unstable sense of self and unstable emotions (On the board is the 9 criteria that need to be met for a diagnosis).

My interest in this comes from personal experience as well as psychological curiosity. it has always fascinated me how different each persons perception of reality is. As well as how much mental illness can warp reality’.

‘This is my first BPD sketch. I’ve always found images better explain something- as well as helping mw make sense of them.

This is a drawing of the words you just saw on the last slide, and although they’re both saying the same thing – I think the drawing is much more scary.

What you’re seeing is three personalities struggling to co-exist amongst a plethora of emotions and hurt.

At this point I already knew I wanted to explore shadow-box art- but I needed to get this on paper before I exploded.

I Spoke to Angus about shadow-box art, he suggested looking at toy theatres’.

‘Toy theatres were primarily around in Victorian times, and gave me the idea to take shadow-boxing a step further’.

‘And so I transformed my original sketch into a deep shadow-box piece. Although overall I consider this to be a successful piece, it wasn’t what I had envisioned.

I think making my first box 60cm deep was slightly too ambitious- so I started to look at artists who have done shadow-boxing in the past’.‘I saw this artist on Instagram and is one of the reasons I wanted to try shadow-boxing myself. He has a very illustrative style as well as his beautiful, surrealish compositions’.

‘Katy Campbell can be seen in the first piece I showed you ‘A Black and White view of the World’. I enjoy the way she cuts out the illustrations of a book to tell the story in a different way. Story telling has always been apart of my own practise’.

‘This was the next piece I did. I tried watercolour in this one and a much shallower shadow box.

Dissociation is a common phenomenon experienced by people with BPD. It happens when emotions get too overwhelming, the body goes into protection mode and can feel like an out-of-body experience.

I also had to get creative with materials in this one. I settled for transparent plastic for the consciousness, so that it is both there and isn’t.’

‘Which brings me back to this piece’

‘In this one I wanted to portray what the world looks like through the eyes of a BPD sufferer. Often, they see the world in black and white- good or evil.

I had so many more ideas for this piece that I decided to turn it into a tryptic’.

‘The left frame is entirely bad thing, and the right is just good. At first glance they may look quite similar, but I wanted the content to be contrasting as possible.

When I showed Angus, he said they reminded him of Victorian picture books’.

‘So that’s where I’m going next. I am currently working on a piece in which the viewer will be able to interact with the drawing. this will be displayed in a shadow-box frame, with a mechanism on the outside which the viewer will be able to turn the ferris wheel themselves. Making them apart of the art. The people in the cars represent different personalities, and the spinning wheel represents the constant highs and lows of BPD’.

Week 9 Exhibition

I decided to exhibit my tryptic ‘A Black and White view of the World’ in St. John’s Parish hall.

This decision was based on the fact that the hall is used for all manner of community events so will host every type of person. Whereas the art department and night club only attract a certain type of person. My piece is about mankind as a whole, the world in every light- so I thought this location was the most appropriate.

I displayed outside the main hall in the corridor. The hall was more isolated as well as being black and white- matching my piece.

Week 5 Exhibition

This is a shadow box piece exploring the theme of Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD).
It depicts a state of mind. Three personalities struggling to coexist, amongst an army of relentless and unforgiving emotions. BPD is a disorder of mood, and how a person interacts with others. In this piece I have tried to represent some of the main symptoms of the illness. The three figures are three personalities. The personality nearest the back (holding the baby) is desperately trying to mother the other two, she is the primary personality and trying to keep everything together while obviously having to deal with everyday life. The baby is another personality, it is young, naïve and very dependant- it has to function in an adult body, in an adult life and obviously struggles with that a lot.
The frame, seen at eye level, protrudes 60cm behind the wall. Different layers of illustration are spaced from front to back of the box-frame, creating a staggered effect. Both frame and illustration are black and white.
The box, or frame is made from wood measured and cut to size with a table saw and screwed together. I then painted it black. The slides inside are made from thick card painted white. I drew the scenes with charcoal and cut around them with a scalpel before inserting them into the shadow box.
The main idea behind my work is personifying BPD. Translating something into an image is always a challenge, especially when it is a state of mind- but it’s a challenge I enjoy, and it helps people to understand better. Most people can relate to an image more than a diagnosis, or a dictionary definition. My hope is that my piece will bring BPD awareness and help non-sufferers to empathise.
My interest in this subject come primarily from a personal experience with the disorder. I am constantly aware that I am experiencing the world differently to those around me, and by putting this into a physical image that everyone else can see makes me feel more heard.
I first saw the shadow box concept in the Rijksmuseum, Gerrit Schouten. I was mesmerised by this layering effect, and how almost sculptural his work was. I have always admired the art of storytelling, and this technique did it well. The question from there was ‘what story did I want to tell?’.

Bpd sketch

This is a visual representation of how bpd feels (in my opinion). The drawing is of one soul. There are three different personalities struggling to coexist; and the faces floating around them represent the extreme emotions.

I think the drawing is successful, the charcoal and the bold style makes it very expressive. The next step is to translate this into shadow box form.

Borderline Personality Disorder

I have chosen to focus on borderline personality disorder as I feel I could get more out of exploring just one mental illness. It is also an illness I have personal experience with and it’ll be easier to portray things I have experienced.

Borderline personality disorder(BPD), also known as emotionally unstable personality disorder (EUPD), is a long-term pattern of abnormal behavior characterized by unstable relationships with other people, unstable sense of self and unstable emotions.