Layers of the Mindscape
What is it like to be raised with mental illness?  How does it affect you to have been raised by someone who could be one person one day and someone else the next?   When can you know that the real person is talking to you, and when are the things being said just a part of the illness?  What is it like to experience the institutionalization of a parent?  

My mother has suffered from manic depression for the last 22 years. My life with her has been afflicted with nuance, change and drama. Life could be overwhelming, infuriating, painful, and often “normal” and “happy.” In my work, I share my perspectives on manic depression, as a daughter bearing witness to my mother’s illness. Through the use of digital collage, I create images that reflect on different encounters and experiences with my mother over the last 2 years. In this way, I strive to visually represent different aspects of my life with her illness. Through the layering of photographic imagery, often with text, I am able to share a complex reality as well as create an escape into the surreal. In a sense, the images are incomplete; they are to be experienced like a puzzle, but one with no resolution.




Prints Available for Purchase.