holiest-helll

[holiest-helll]

Cura te Ipsum

K. Hayes, Acrylic on Canvas, 2018. various sizing. NFS.

This painting series is very important to me, as it’s my first big solo project that I’m able to share with people something that I’m very passionate, and that’s self awareness, and how I used that to begin my self care journey. I suffer with anxiety, depression, PTSD, and in this series I touch on my own experiences, and how I used self care to propel myself into a better place. At the center of this series, the concept I worked with was foundations as it’s my philosophy that in order for people to be their best, it starts at our foundation, ourself. I incorporated various “foundations” that work together to communicate the importance of self care.   All alluding to the idea of self-care each painting has a relationship with each other. By creating connections amongst colors, patterns, and symbols my paintings communicate indirect suggestions on how people could practice self-care and begs the question, is there more that people can do to take care of themselves? By using familiar symbols people will be able to develop a personal connection with with the art, helping them further their self-care journey. Common imagery ranges from tear drops, to pills, to crowns, plants and more, all of these symbols have a connection that the viewer has to put together for themselves, so they can take care of themselves in their own way. Color choice was a big part of this process. I used primary colors more frequently, as they are the foundation to colors beyond red, yellow and blue. Relationships between colors are imperative to these paintings because of the color connotations which occur when viewers interpret colors. I decided early on that with this series of paintings the colors used were going to be chosen based on the emotion associated with the color.  There are psychological effects that go along with colors, relating them to anger, calming, anxiety and other intense emotions. Throughout art history, we can see certain colors used to provoke an emotion. The Fauves were known for their use of color in relation to emotion. Henri Matisse was a leader of this group and was well known for  using  color and form as means of communicating the artist's emotion.  Matisse’s Joy of Life is a popular example of using color in abstract places unlike reality. His use of color was responsive only to the emotional expression the imagery conveyed. The yellow grass symbolizes joy. The greens symbolize growth and harmony, the pink indicates romance, and so on. As an artist I think it’s important that we utilize tools like psychology in an effort to connect with viewers.  This series touches on an important conversation people should be having. In the millennial generation self-care is often represented on social media. In fall of 2018 there was a trend on twitter in which participants did non productive activities in the name of self care and this begged the question, what does self care mean? If you were to google what self care is you would get thousands of methods that are all different. As an artist I had control over what self-care methods I wanted to promote, so I had to do some reflecting on how I practice self-care.  Mental health plays a huge role in this painting series as it was the main motivator for my act on self-care. Anxiety, depression, PTSD, addiction and more are all motivating factors in my art as they are all somehow involved in my life. Anxiety, as dictionary.com puts it, is a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease, typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome. Anxiety can stop someone from doing something different, and unfortunately shelters and keeps back whoever it has in it’s grasp. I experienced this feeling everyday up until I reached out and got help. I practiced the method of talking to someone (highlight speaking painting),  to acknowledge there was a problem, and that helped us diagnose the issue, and thus help by prescribing medicine (highlight pill painting). By doing these two things, by talking to someone and by taking my medicine I was able to feel better, and feeling better made me a better me. That is one of my relationships to my paintings, and it’s my hope that other people can create relationships with my paintings in an effort to further their self-care practices. Using simple steps like breathing, drinking water, and even counting are easy ways to help anxiety when you feel it rising in the pit of your chest. Depression is a mental condition characterized by feelings of severe despondency and dejection, typically also with feelings of inadequacy and guilt, often accompanied by lack of energy and disturbance of appetite and sleep. Depression is something that I still struggle with, which is why in a lot of the paintings, the backgrounds are blue; acting as a metaphor for the underlying neverending feeling that depression gives me, despite being at the highest points of my life so far. The symbols I use allow, you the viewer to make personal connections and it makes this series very subjective to the viewer and how they want to interpret the methods at hand. In my series I have 4 self portraits and in them I took my own personal experiences and I worked to create imagery people would understand, so that there was context for the series as a whole, from the artists’ perspective. In my self portraits I incorporated many things I like, such as stripes, big eyelashes, good brows, and I also put in plant imagery to symbolize my growth and what I have achieved in not only self care, but what I achieved with this series as a whole.

I’m not sure how I feel about this. But this is my senioro art project. I was in a tough spot but this is what came of it. Cheers.