- All About the Eyes
All About the Eyes
About:
This piece examines our ever-changing identity and the personas that we outwardly display to the world.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is a journey of deconstructing and reconstructing the ‘self’. It is a time of flux for your identity where you begin to make new choices and regain control over how you wish to be seen by yourself and others. This is a long process and not a straight path, along the journey, you become estranged to yourself and others so are constantly trying to assert new parts of your identity in various contexts.
The way in which in we choose to attract or deflect attention varies greatly, dependent on a range of factors. On the one extreme, the process of adorning and glamorising may used as a technique to help make us feel "better". On the other, we may choose to hide or camouflage ourselves. At times, we fall in between and choose an appearance that makes ourselves fit in; to feel comfortable.
No matter how much we cover, hide, embellish or decorate ourselves, the one constant is our eyes. You can never truly hide the emotions, thoughts and stories that we project through them.
Recently, it has become apparent that as we make progress in recovery and develop our coping mechanisms, our illness becomes more invisible. In turn, support, understanding, compassion and help from others becomes less likely. This makes the whole process of recovery more difficult and exhausting and us more vulnerable; and so the cycle continues.
Something that stood out to me during CBT is the moment that I decided to let colour back into my world. Not metaphorically or spiritually but in a very physical sense. Colour is variety and therefore choice. It represents emotions and reflects feelings and moods. It gives us a means to display our identity. Colour is a result of the way in which our eyes reflect or emit light. They say that there is always light (or colour) at the end of the tunnel, so in essence you may reach the colour but the tunnel is always behind you.
Original:
SOLD
Giclee Print:
30 x 30 cm
Signed
limited edition of 5
on Hahnemuhle pape