"Anxiety"

Color is a constant in any piece of art I make. I made these pieces with watercolor and ink, creating bright blocks of color, each color to convey a different mood or emotion. The inspiration for this series of portraits was the sense of disorientation and disjunction that I have felt over time, and especially over the course of this year. Each portrait represents a different emotion; frustration, anger, exhaustion, anxiety, and fear. The goal of these paintings was to identify and focus on the negative emotions I feel in the hopes of turning them into something beautiful. I have felt so much anxiety over Covid-19, so much frustration over the bigoted and racist systems on which our country is built and so much fear over the future. I feel so much anger towards the police and the government, and exhaustion from trying to change them. I have learned through making these paintings that negative emotions are just as powerful as positive ones and that exhaustion, anger, anxiety, frustration, and fear can all be motivators for change.