*＊✿❀ Artist Statement ❀✿＊*

For my sustained investigation, I have chosen to focus on representing mental health struggle, stigma, and the consequently dehumanizing treatment of these things, through animal motifs. Beginning the year, my investigation was guided more through a focus on the push and pull of positive and negative as it relates to mental health, though this morphed as I wanted to lean more into the discomfort, raw, and real emotion of struggle and stigma, and found myself using animal analogies and connections to demonstrate the difficulty in grappling with mental health. I have additionally branched beyond my typical colored pencil illustrations throughout my project, moving into painting and mixed media as I explore deeper topics that walk a line between concrete and abstract. My greatest inspiration comes largely from general ideas and experiences from my own life in combination with earlier works of my own. Previous colored pencil explorations, such as “tucked away”, led me to focus primarily heavily on the medium, for example. Another earlier piece, “The Watcher”, sparked my interest in the macabre and creepier imagery that has become a large theme throughout my portfolio. As a whole, the majority of my exploration has been greatly personal and influenced by observations of my surroundings and prior experiences of my own.