Public Image

Acrylic On Canvas

h: 14 x w: 11 in

$400.00 + Shipping

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When I graduated high school I made a conscience decision to seprate my private experience from my public image. It was a concrete experiment in myth making and performance art. It was my goal to never again be pigeon holed or manipulated by external elements. I accomplished this goal by treating each day as a different performance. Just like when I was a child my closet became my make believe box. I would wake up in the morning and decide who I wanted to be. By the end of my first semester of college I had developed a collective of characters. Each had subtle differences in gait, wardrobe and and even posture. I am certain that to the outsider their wasn't even any difference but to me the change was monumental. This experiment allowed me to detach myself from my experiences and was a great tool in figuring out who the adult me was. Unfortunately, like all great tools, if one overuses them they become a crutch. Around the age of 22 I stopped being able to the difference between my public and private life. The result of this was a return to the madness that I thought I had escaped some years before. Fortunately, at this point I was not too afraid to ask for help, and with the help of my family, my psychiatrist at the time and a Cognitive Behavioralist I was able to develop coping mechanisms to deal with my demons. This painting aims to illustrate the sensation of mental collapse that I felt at that time in my life.