Empower me is an image that epitomises the experience of living with a mental illness.  Sometimes painful, sometimes confusing, sometimes even surprisingly enlightening, illness can change the way one views the world.  This image refers to these attributes by depicting a figure that is bound by bandages- a means usually of healing the body, but in this case unable to heal the mind.  Text appears on the image: empower me and release me. It refers not only to the illness itself, but also to the society that classifies us, aims to help us, and sometimes even means to control us.

This is a genuine straitjacket that has been worked up with symbols relating to stigma, stereotypes, language, the human figure struggling and images and typography around mental health. A female figure embraces herself in need, lemons refer to the concept of a ‘dud’, and language questions our references to illness.

psychiatry | judgement | classification

Women are sexualised objects within our society, when we are ‘owned’ for our bodies we are also owned and judged for our minds. Experience of mental illness can lead one to try to protect one’s own ‘intellect or mind’, so as not to be left vulnerable. This is what this image aims to depict.

fiction | reality | story

The artist often works with birds as a metaphor for Cuckoos. Cuckoos representing madness comes from the film ‘One flew over the Cuckoos nest’ where madness itself is questionable. This image shows the longevity of mental illness through having the first in flight, but their bones without flesh.

Self portrait completed at a time when artist was struggling with categorisation and diagnoses. The face is partially cropped to demonstrate how mental health practitioners can sometimes look beyond the individual looking only at the DSM.

drift | amidst | atmosphere

Self portrait with typography that refer to mental health judgements or stigma. A psychiatric symbol appears horizontally along the bottom of the bottom canvas. This symbol, and the cross over the right eye, are 3D constructions on a 2D format.

cuckoos | flailing | ambiance

symbology | reference | history

glowing | physical | warmth

take | absorb | feel

flight | fright | might

oozing | warmth | aura

external vs internal