The Masks We Wear ‘23/’24

A developing series of works, evidencing Helen’s continued exploration of the experience of identity dysphoria in the wake of parental bereavement, originating from the loss of both parents during the COVID-19 lockdowns; finding ways to express the finality, confusion, isolation and loneliness that comes with loss, death and grief.

With a particular focus, on the masks we wear to hide our insecurities, particularly in times of trauma and survival, and how social norms exaggerate feelings of loneliness and isolation.

"As a mixed-media artist, I intentionally explore the way various mediums interact, repel and contradict each other to create interesting textural contrasts, in order to reflect the life changing experience of parental loss, and becoming an ‘adult orphan’ before the age of 30...

…the way day-to-day life becomes a blurry, unknown place overnight; giving rise to anxiety, depression, derealisation, depersonalisation, and disassociation. The world felt unsafe as I simultaneously navigated various other big life changes - new city, new life, moving house, new housemates, new friends, new corporate job - and all without my life witnesses to remind me how far I had come...I found myself disillusioned to my surroundings and who I was becoming, before I was ‘ready', almost changing too fast and without a grounding in what my new identity would be - I played with this but not in a fun way and it became a very lonely place; an obsession with perception...”

* Original Artworks Available to purchase here *