Gosh this feels a bit weird, but here’s a web page full of paintings of me, by me. They’re not like my installation work, not even that mad looking, really. But they came about during a big mad time, and they helped me to notice some important things.
Mad portraits
In 2021 I came close to death in a suicide attempt, following an experience at work that made me feel like I didn’t actually exist (and if I didn’t exist there was no point going on with this much pain, I thought).
It was the beginning of the end of almost two decades of work as ‘consumer advocate’ in the mental health system. I hung on for almost another year, tragically. Sometimes it takes a while to see what’s obvious: working for years with the system that violated and abused you is not going to end well. And work that drives you to suicide is not work worth having.
That wasn’t the only thing going on at the time. Memories of childhood abuse had risen up again for me, my own body felt like a betrayer again. That old sense of evilness was back. Every single moment felt impossible.
Around this time I returned to painting, with encouragement from a wonderful, trustworthy support person in my life. I had no plan to do this, but what emerged was a whole series of self-portraits, and in these paintings came the stories I was needing to hear about my work and life.
It’s a strange thing, to spend months staring at and recreating your own face and what you feel. Especially when I felt so disconnected from myself. Perhaps this art provided me with a counter tension to the floaty painful emotional experience, I don’t know.
Perhaps it mattered not to look away from myself at a time when I really wanted to. These painting ended up mattering to me, a lot.
The art wasn’t the only catalyst, but it was definitely a part of what helped me to see that I had to leave, and why. I am grateful to these paintings, and to whatever part of me was able to paint them.
There are still some self-portraits from this time that remain unfinished, and one I don’t feel able to share.
Perhaps that’s just as it should be.
