In March, I started a portrait of my 6 year old self; I finally completed it in August. What initially started as an opportunity to practice my portraiture skills quickly matured into a journey of self-confrontation. Over the course of half a year I was confronted with the task of encompassing the essence of what it means to reflect on my formative years.

I started this painting not knowing what I was reckoning with. I was dead set on becoming a therapist, through this process I learned that I want to pursue a career in art. I have realised that I was avoiding having to reflect on my own melancholy by analysing other peoples complexes. Hyper-rationalisation is a survival mechanism that I have been employing since a young age. I was confronted by this fact with every brush stroke, every compositional choice and every background change. The only thing I was certain about was the foreground, which was a self portrait. I struggled to find a background which resonated with my subconscious, I re-painted this several times. Repainting the background once again, only to find out that it didn't fit the piece was an emotionally infuriating experience. I came extremely close to stabbing the canvas with a kitchen knife, it was the impulse of this dramatic act of violence that illustrated how I truly felt about my formative years.

This confrontational moment was a result of dramatic developments in my personal life which were closely tied to my upbringing. This painting was my way of processing these changes. I owe my sanity to this painting, as it allowed me to make sense of those crucial 6 months, the most hectic 6 months of my life. Completing this piece has been one of my most gratifying achievements, it has allowed me to navigate emotional discomfort resulting in substantial artistic maturity.

The final piece depicts my 6 year old self in a pink dollhouse, which symbolises my perplexing relationship with femininity. This dollhouse is modelled after the hotel hallway from the horror film, 'The Shining', which explores the theme of quite literally navigating childhood with a mentally ill parent. This hallway is being broken through the doors by a screaming man who casts a green light on me, which illustrates the effect of mental illness on a child. This light is depicted with extremely harsh brush strokes, I think this evokes a feeling of discomfort in the beholder. The dramatic contrast in physical size between me and this man is elucidated by the lack of space that I occupy in this hallway, which serves as a commentary on power imbalances between parents and their children.

This painting was never about condemning mentally ill parents for their lack of control over a seemingly damning diagnosis, it's about the child navigating the hostile environment that this fosters. I did not want to fetishise the sympathetic appeal of ‘trauma’, I wanted to occupy a space that is my own, as an artist.

Link to my painting: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BbW6qDF5dYvQ8DTTLw2LfdbYjgxRLFLX/view?usp=sharing