Alone
2020 - marble, smalti, cinca and copper with patination from the artist's urine - 30cm x 30cm
Alone expresses the overwhelming disconnection I have experienced from living through 6 months of Covid lockdowns over the past year. Together with my two assistance dogs, I am a single celled organism floating in space. Horizonless, timeless, my head is encircled by a moat … a halo of verdegris, the copper patinated by my own bodily juices. My DNA tails wriggle and jiggle, playfully attempting to resist the containment of the encircling marble, but it is a comfort. It holds me. I am contained… and now I am also seen.
Shock Therapy
2020 - marble, glass, travertine, limestone and Mexican smalti - 30cm x 30cm
Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) is a procedure, done under general anesthesia, in which small electric currents are passed through the brain, intentionally triggering a brief seizure. Science is unsure how it works but they think it causes changes in brain chemistry.
Skin Deep
2019 - marble, glass, travertine and Italian smalti glass - 30cm x 30cm
We present to the world many protective layers in our being. It is often difficult to shed the layers, as it leaves one being exposed and vulnerable to our harsh environment. Do we want to expose what is really going on in our life? The mosaic reflects the multi layering effect and the challenges in getting to the core of our being.
Treading Water
2021 - travertine and marble - 30cm x 30cm
Exhausted from treading and trying to bail out with a bottle of emptiness. It is hopeless... Exhausted with no hope... I drift off in sadness and wake up in sadness. Stuck on survive, treading in deep water and so, so, so sad. My life - the life of sadness. I am “done"! The pills just keep me afloat, treading in sadness yet another day. Life has no purpose - my sense of being in this space of hopelessness. To stop 'treading' - to drown brings me a sigh of relief. I am icy cold. Time stands still. Oh... Relief!
Fishbowl Eyes
2019 - marble, glass, travertine and Italian smalti glass - 30cm x 30cm
One is drowning. There is no point, but clawing to just stay afloat. The claws are weak. There is no hope or point to being - disconnected. The fish in the bowl is immobilised. There is no light. There is no hope. Staff eyes constantly watching, but not interacting. The world outside critiques and is part of the world. Staff eyes constantly watching, but not interacting. The world outside critiques and is part of the world.
Seclusion
2019 - marble, glass, travertine and Italian smalti glass - 30cm x 30cm
Clawing to the universe begging to end the pain. Acutely unwell in the seclusion room, confronted with four green walls and a mattress on the floor. What has your life become? You have nothing, except the blue hospital scrubs/pj’s. There is no interaction – except the peephole and eyes.
Hands of Self Harm
2020 - marble, travertine, limestone, pebbles and Italian red smalti glass - 30cm x 30cm
The hand is the most frequently symbolised part of the human body. It gives blessing - it is expressive. In general, it is about strength, power and protection. But these hands are also a coping mechanism to relieve intense emotional pain. These hands have the power to excite and prohibit, to express approval, wonder and shame.
Light at the end of the tunnel
2020 - marble, smalti, granite - 30cm x 30cm
With mental illness, often there is no light at the end of the tunnel. This metaphoric expression dates from the 1800s and using this phrase for people who are distressed is generally not helpful. The brick wall is impenetrable, crushing one’s hope. The tentacle-like roots are searching for light. The brick wall is impenetrable, crushing one’s hope. The tentacle-like roots are searching for light.
"What's going on in my head?"
2019 - Italian smalti, marble, stone - 30cm x 30cm
With mental illness you often have a skewed perception of yourself. Your days can be consumed by ideas swimming around in your head and your perception of reality is distorted. I used faceted glass to depict the broken thoughts and extreme chemistry that one has. The person, much like shattered glass, can’t go back to that person they used to be. The green hair depicts the manic mood swings ranging from depressive low to manic highs. The line down the middle illustrates the extremes of either depression or manic. Chemicals in your head are out of sync and the misinformed cast judgment calling that ‘crazy’. No one likes to be labelled. Like Picasso’s Weeping Woman, the facial features are abstracted and the face is distorted.
Detour
2021 - marble, gold and Italian smalti - 30cm x 30cm
No one would recognize me now. You would not recognize me. Put together by an assortment of pills... So I can lift my head for another day. But no one really sees me now. I feel nothing. I exist in emptiness... Helplessness. What a detour to the person you once knew? I make sure I won’t be found out. There is nothing left. A detour of no return, of emptiness and immobilization.
Crossroads
2018 - marble, travertine - 25cm x 25cm
Depicts contemplation of hope when coming from a dark place.
DIALOGUE OF THE O.K!
As an emerging artist living with disability from an acquired brain injury and mental illness, my art practice is both my voice and my mindfulness. Dialogue of the O.K! has been a tool in my healing. As a series of artworks, it also seeks to challenge mental health stereotypes and unpack the lived experience of mental illness.
Through it, I have reclaimed the place of my treatment at St. Vincent’s Hospital, Melbourne and explored the phenomenological experience of mental health through a series of illustrative vignettes encapsulating ‘pat’ phrases commonly uttered to or by those with a mental illness. Although often shared with good intent, each phrase is empty and without real insight into the experience itself. It serves to undermine. Informed by my own mental health experiences of alienation, hopelessness and the starkness of barren hospital walls, the title of each work from Dialogue of the O.K! says it all: Alone, What’s going on in my Head, Seclusion, Self-Harm, Shock Therapy, Skin Deep, Light at the end of the Tunnel, and Fish Bowl Eyes.
As I worked on this series, my skills as a mosaicist developed. I learned about the history of mosaic and gradually built a more complex set of manual skills and mark making vocabulary. Towards the end, I began to work less using Italian glass smalti and more using marble. Eventually leaving colour and illustration behind, I then embarked on a new kind of journey that was less about the experience of illness and more about finding wellness.
Photographs - James Whiting.