Integration

During the first weeks of lockdown, I began producing one painting per day. My release of frustration due to isolation was influenced by the art therapy literature I was reading in preparation for my training starting later the same year. Fascinated by the concept of the integration of emotions, previously denied or partitioned in a separate part, my portraits depict my processing of this idea. Beginning with small pale figures, almost white in complexion, placed amid increasingly exciting and vibrant backgrounds; the figures become larger and larger on the page portraying a growing sense of self, the colour and texture integrating into the figure itself until I reached this intimate view into my thoughts and feelings expressed as this self portrait.