"This work was created around October 2014. I had only started painting at the beginning of the month and this was the first time I tried to express myself through art.
I was off work with a severe episode of depression, triggered by acute anxiety.
This piece is a self portrait and shows my two sides as I saw them at that time. The green and yellow side, which if viewed alone looks like a happy, ‘normal’, person. This side reflects the side that people see.
When you have a mental illness you look just like everyone else, who’s to know you are ill.
The second side, the red and black, reflects how I felt. At that time, I felt like I was falling apart. I no longer appeared to be the person I thought I was, that was falling away and all that was left was a void - hence the black."