Conceptual Process – Anxiety II
Life in colour
Following on from my exploration of the feeling and process of anxiety in past blogs HERE and HERE, another piece is finished this week. This one is in three pieces and is quite simple really.
I once had a conversation with someone very close to me when I was recovering last year. About how when the anxiety that you’ve been feeling for more time than you can remember finally lifts, you’re living life in colour. The rest of the time when something is pulling at your mind, you’re trapped and the colour is outside.
You can’t see clearly, can’t think clearly, you’re a shadow of yourself and everything happens around you. You take part in it but your mind is elsewhere, in a fog.
Hours can go by and you know, you realise that there’s good stuff out there, but it’s dull and it doesn’t feel tangible. The colour is outside and its surrounding but you don’t have it.
And here we have our first figure – trapped, trapped with the world in colour happening around you, not interacting with you whilst you stand small and nervous and frozen whilst time, and colour goes on around you.
Flickers of light
Once you manage to get control of your thoughts and the physical sensations start to ease off, it feels like the embers dying down and you start to feel flickers of life in colour.
This is our second figure, half way recovered but still feeling a bit of fog as the anxiety dies down. Sometimes, it flares back up and you end up trapped in the cage in the grey again but some of the time, thankfully, you get to feel the colour start to come back into your life. The second figure shows the colour starting to flicker back to you and the cage dying off, like a camp fire that’s been left for the evening.
Free
The next figure is the true you, that which has been through the feelings and the fog and has come out on the other side. You notice the little things and enjoy them. You can take joy in whatever you’re looking at, even if its mundane, your brain is firing on all cylinders and you feel like you can do anything. This is living life in colour, when the anxiety has subsided and until it comes on again.
Reflection
So, that’s my anxiety cycle described for you and made flesh in clay and acrylic. One thing I did notice when I was reviewing art works inspired by anxiety, after this idea came to mind, was that the same sort of representation appeared repeatedly. Grey, faceless figures, spirals and chaotic movement. I found that very interesting as I’m sure all of these artists are also painting or making what they feel and there are clear themes throughout.
To see the rest of my portfolio, which I will be adding my first anxiety piece to check HERE
To read the rest of my ramblings about the meaning behind my works, go HERE