Derived from memory, my work makes space for a topic that has no room in everyday conversation. I paint self-portraits set within a generalized depiction of a psychiatric hospital. They live in the realm of taboo, and expose the fractured and isolating systems within U.S. mental healthcare. Imbued with catharsis and criticism, the setting is defined by windowless interior spaces, patterned tile floors, and empty walls. The glaring fluorescent lights reveal not that which is present, but that which is absent—decor, flora, clothing, connection, creativity. While the setting is based on my real memories, it is also surreal; both aesthetically and in the uncanny nature of a wellness-oriented space that is notably lacking evidence of wellness, care, and compassion.
Re-interpreting these memories on low quality, torn canvas satisfies a need I feel to purge obsessive and defeatist ruminations. The patients’ heightened states of mind represent by proxy the pools of reality existing within every human. The cross-stitching that holds together the fragments of drop cloth canvas creates a physical reference to my personal history of severe mental illness and suicidality. The intersection of my identities as a gender-variant, queer, disabled, and working class individual raised in the American South are inextricable from my experiences in institutionalized care. I do not shy away from the messiness and confusion.
Through secondary scenes embedded in the paintings, the evidence of my investigation into the Western lunatic asylum makes connections between historical injustices and my own personal history of institutionalization. The horrors of the insane asylum have been excessively sensationalized in media. Much of the framing of this history has fallen to the implicated institutions, often with major omissions and revisions. The names of doctors who mutilated and killed massive numbers of patients can be found memorialized on institution walls as altruistic pioneers. I am re-framing these depictions at a time when the U.S. mental health crisis is at an all time high. As with any marginalized group, framing the modern patient’s experience is only possible through the lens of historical injustice. I position myself not only in my personal narrative, but as a conduit for the psychiatric patient throughout Western history to bring forth a visual indictment of the U.S. mental healthcare system.
