In the last few years, my relationship with art has very much become one of healing, and Identity of the Injured is the product of this segment of my artistic journey. It is a body of work featuring multimedia drawings, oil paintings, and a small collection of poetry. My goal for this collection was to document my mental health during the time that each piece was made and observe how trauma has affected my understanding of “self” and “identity.” I leaned heavily into the creative process, though, as these pieces came into existence and focused on it as a form of catharsis. Suddenly, emotions and concepts that I had long since suffered with in silence demanded a physical form outside of my body. In analyzing the present, I was forced to face the past and found myself phasing back and forth between past and present as I worked through each piece. Through this exploration, I broke apart the human figure to identify and express this inner turmoil I faced when trying to discover who I am.

Charcoal and oil paint provided that release that I needed as they allowed me to work with my hands to manipulate the medium in a way that developed a deeper connection between my body and my artwork. This push and pull with the medium created a very intuitive and emotional process that helped me uncover subconscious notions that I had developed about who I am as a person. Poetry became another method that I used to unlock my brain, and this collection of poems works to strengthen the unity between the pictorial pieces in Identity of the Injured. It just goes to show, too, that there is no one form of art that is more therapeutic than another.