Curatorial Rationale

My exhibition is about vulnerability and repression. It confronts the shame and embarrassment felt when asking others for help and approaches the emotional depths a human can spiral towards: alone, helpless, and too afraid to reach out for support. This collection of artwork chronicles my own struggles with mental health and the reluctance I felt towards sharing it with anyone. After so much time shoving my emotions and experiences into the ground, the thought of displaying it in such a public way scares me. I hope my exhibit can bring you, the audience, to your lowest emotional points, so you can connect with my artwork and share that helpless feeling.

This overarching theme was not my first. I created many pieces under dierent labels, always shifting and changing from each idea to the next. I was never sure of what exactly I was trying to convey, and felt unsatisfied with the lack of unity between my artworks. Eventually, I realized I was repressing large parts of myself and my life, as well as ignoring that all my artworks were really a way to be vulnerable without ever talking about my issues. The resistance to processing my life, combined with the fact that I’d been unknowingly confessing my hurt into these artworks, created my actual theme.

My artmaking skills have gone on a journey since I started this collection two years ago. Vulnerability and loneliness are represented in a variety of mediums and compositions. Active breakdowns are shown in Possession and 3-3-3 Rule, using aggressive brush strokes and contrasting values. Many pieces have intense chiaroscuro and hard-edged shadow, pointing to the extreme emotional highs and lows experienced during panic. Passive, begrudging acceptance of pain can be seen in pieces like Self-portrait and Missing Item, each depicting something in decay; a situation long past, with worry already spent.

As I added to my body of work, I experimented with new mediums, most notably 3D sculpture. The ability to portray hurt in three dimensions allowed me to ground feelings in the real world, giving them more tangible form than a canvas or paper. Missing Item, my first sculpture, frames the arm as an abandoned object. Its 3D nature adds a layer of intrigue to it, like you could find it thrown away in a dumpster.

While creating my works, I aimed to capture feelings of solitude and desperation. Thus, most of my work takes heavy influence from expressionism, which is characterized by the intent to express thoughts and experiences rather than illustrating the real world. The genre is seen in the distorted human forms, suggesting how repression and loneliness can warp perception of the world. Vivid, unrealistic colors invoke thoughts and emotions instead of representing reality. Each artwork portrays a facet of an extremely personal issue. During my exhibit, I want you to feel like you’re witnessing—or going through—the end of an emotional breakdown. Everything’s o-kilter, someone’s/your shoulders are shaking, and the air around you is just starting to settle. They/you are beginning to patch the cracks in the dam where the river broke through.

I thought the best way to represent this was to play with the orientations of each piece and place artworks in a way that pulled the viewer to each corner equally. The tilted nature of each 2D work suggests the display has been through something, shaking it and decreasing the stability. I placed Splinter in the middle, as the figure is being drawn to various forms and parts of loneliness placed around it. Color is balanced across the exhibit, giving equal weight to each piece.

Using vivid colors, palpable textures, and a rattled arrangement, my exhibit hopes to transport you to your most vulnerable moments, feeling helpless and too embarrassed to ask anyone for help. The personal nature of each work, baring wounds and showing unfiltered emotion, is a subtle request to the audience. The exhibit asks to form a connection: it shared with you. Do you want to share back?