Cubism Study No. 5

Acrylic on wood block with gold and silver leaf.

Max Ernst and Fish Study

Acrylic on wood block.

Some Peace

A surrealist painting of my old bedroom window.

Memories in Dreams

I lucid dreamed for the first time of a lake I used to visit growing up. While dreaming I realized that I was in a dreamscape and it turned into a nightmare. This painting is of the moment everyone in my dream know I realized I was in a dream.

Coping Mechanism: Oral Fixations

This piece shows the coping mechanisms of biting your nails, biting the inner parts of your mouth, neglecting dental care, and holding tension in your mouth which results in grinding your teeth. The organic lines in the gums and coming into the mouth show the tension held and that comes in from outside world. On the tongue there are fingernails with chipped black nail polish. This also reflects the neglect of personal upkeep as a result of being unmotivated.

Coping Mechanism: Self Harm

This piece shows how self harm does not help, it just opens the void even more. The void refers to what we try to fill in order to not have to face our hardships. The little organic pieces show the tension building around the blade and how it leaves residue in the places it has cut (also represents scaring from self harm).

Coping Mechanism: Physical Reactions

After looking into understanding our mental reactions in coping, I wanted to take a step back to understand how are body physically reacts in stress. The lungs are shown as being squeezed to show trouble in breathing: the trachea is knotted to depict the early stages of a crying meltdown: the stomach is oozing to show a queasy feeling: and finally the intestines as tied around the spinal cord to show how your stomach may feel knotted and how movement seems very hard or even impossible when in a high stress situation.

Coping Mechanism: Eating Disorders

Eating disorders are commonly shown to be caused by societal standards and lack of self confidence. While these are true I also wanted to show how the growing problem is often triggered by some type of trauma.