Self-expression without words - that is the essence of my experience and persistence with drawing and painting throughout my journey of mental illness. To whom? To myself and sometimes to others. To myself it has been like a diary that I can open later, often to see how far I have come along this path, the road littered with severe trauma, light moments of scattered smiles and deep anguish. The torrid emotions and conflicting, burning images - symbolic and often painful, are like scars that I now look upon with a mixture of regret and relief. Most of my drawings have been strong with symbolism; I guess that mental illness favours that concept, as I saw symbolism and hidden meanings everywhere in past delusions.

Art is intrinsically subjective, and a lot of my art only makes sense to me. I have done art purposefully for others to view, but I feel that in such a conscious decision whilst drawing, that my work would be appraised by others and there is the desire motivating me that I should try to make ‘sense’ to others, usually as a message or snapshot of my mind. My intentions in the art can be deliberately coherent, and I guess that this step of art for others’ sake is a step up, a dawning of leaving the complete self-absorption state of the illness into some sort of recovery, a healing had taken place through art. I say self - absorption in a sort of contradictory way, because to the self in a delusional state you think that everyone is talking about you, watching you, persecuting you - but you just want it all to go away and leave you in peace - but all of that is not real.

The mechanics of constructing the art can be wild and also painstakingly deliberate at the same time. I know this is a terrible contradiction, but so indeed is the illness. Sometimes manically sorting out every line, colour, and shade and at other times such free, broad strokes of the brush in free form as the weapon of choice. Often the art is laden with these hidden meanings and secrets, or a glaring image to overtly shock and then an appeal from my soul to share its pain. I have presented fragments of myself outside myself into solid, tangible objects, produced from within and at the same time at a distance. It is not always possible to stand by and explain the art, especially when the intended audience is only myself. Sometimes I have destroyed my art, when I have released the images from my core and created them outside myself - it has served its purpose in a moment of my life, the expression a primal need I’m sure is in every human being trying to be understood.

The illness can be so baffling, especially to myself that to see it outside myself can be very therapeutic. Images and thought patterns materialised through my hands that had unsettled and plagued the inside of me - cast out, given the opportunity to be analysed, it becomes less frightening and soul destroying. Such cannot be done with words. Speaking depends so much on abstracts like body language, eye contact and all the non-verbal communications that can be sabotaged and interfered with by auditory hallucinations, paranoia and by the fact that when I was unwell I had virtually lost most of my social skills. Art can be a dialogue with the self, made into a concrete form outside the self and reflects back to the artist what the artist may have difficulty consciously accepting, realising or understanding.