This serves as an artist statement. Fifty-One Fifty is the emergency services code for a temporary, involuntary psychiatric hold over individuals deemed a danger to themselves or others, applied to people who are considered to be mentally unstable. This series is emblematic of my story, and the ultimate form of cathartic self-expression. Experiencing Psychosis three times was not expected to happen, but it greatly altered my life. I am grateful for my psychotic episodes, for I was allowed admittance into the primal and horrifying wanderlust that is the broken psyche. There exists a state of mind so painful, confusing and neurologically damaging, it can be known to be an involuntary permanent state of mind.
The unknown and unrelatable; the act of relaying and emulating properties of psychosis that I saw, felt and experienced was my initial goal with this series of work. This work serves as an attempt to recreate and reclaim moments of psychosis. The unwavering potency of color facilitates an axis which allows for the binding of the texture of fabric to that of human skin. Alterations in form bend the conventional structure of the human body seeks to impose curiosity and discomfort for the viewer. The sheer intensity of grandiose delusion, doom shrouded panic attacks, intrusive thoughts and hallucinations, are all concentrated through the technicality of high contrasts in color, lighting, and form.
This series of works stands as an instrument of advocation and representation. There exists a significant stigma surrounding mental illness, especially relating to the more extreme ends of the spectrum of severity. If my works challenges that stigma, I see this as a success. I do believe there is sufficient under-representation of artists suffering from mental illnesses. Fifty-One Fifty advocates for those who remain in the ruptured psyche, for while I was lucky enough to recover to a state of sanity, many souls remain in a limbo-esque hell. This work was made just as much for them, as it was for myself in a cathartic sense. I have been recovering from psychosis for many years, and this work was made during a transitional period of life for me, one in which I find myself entering another iteration of recovery. The future remains untold, and with one foot in front of the other, things fall into place.