CW// mental health, anxiety, thoughts and feelings associated with anxiety
"In this piece, I wanted to represent how disordered thoughts can be all-encompassing in a person's life. I used watercolor to paint swirls stemming from the person's head to represent how thoughts can spiral and become uncontrollable. Lastly, I cut out text from magazines to represent common thoughts that come with mental disorders, specifically from anxiety disorders."
Nina Li
Social Norm
Lock Screen
Assembly Line
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Social Norm Lock Screen Assembly Line Nina Li
Lock Screen (second piece): TW//medical needle
A three-piece painting/collage series that reflects the effect of modern social media on the health of young people.
A three-piece painting/collage series that reflects the effect of modern social media on the health of young people.
A three-piece painting/collage series that reflects the effect of modern social media on the health of young people.
Julie Liu
Hyperreality
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Hyperreality Julie Liu
CW// academic achievement and expectations
"In the painting, a student sits in a dark area in front of a laptop screen that illuminates her face and several piles of books behind her. A scene of a clear, sunny day lies beyond her head wherein several people are walking down a paved path through grass and trees. Between the contrasting panels is a white set of bars that leeches down into the bottom panel. The piece was made using acrylic paint." "The piece depicts the forced separation of a student and the more carefree approach that she would prefer to take to life. Her laptop illuminates only her face and the books behind her, allowing her only a few select priorities, i.e school/work. The scene above her is unburdened and unlike her, relaxed. The few birds flying in the sky and the people walking on the paved path contrast her position of being trapped. The white divider between her and the upper scene is shown to be leeching towards her and indicates an instability in her situation."
Anish Lahiri
TIRED
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TIRED Anish Lahiri Instagram: @lahiri.arts
For description of art: CW// physical and mental exhaustion TW// blood
"Sketch, pencil. Young man curled up in a ball, crying. Depiction discusses fragility of the human, and times when we all just want to sit down, and breathe."
"I crouch down to the ground, my heart weak, my hands trembling. My back is curved from the weight I hold. My muscles ache from the silent burdens they carry. My eyes sting and bleed red from the strain. When will this end? When will I breathe again?"
Linwood Riddick
My Dream
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My Dream Linwood Riddick Instagram: @linwoods_art_man
"Creation is my true escape from stress. To realize a dream and pursue it no matter the challenge is better than not trying at all." "No matter what you gotta hold onto your dream and never let go, cuz you only have 1 dream and 1 life."
Meghna Pithani
Exhaustion
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Exhaustion Meghna Pithani
CW// physical and emotional exhaustion, academic stress culture TW// illness
"I made this piece trying to represent the feeling of being absolutely exhausted, both physically and emotionally. Oftentimes, especially in high school, students feel stressed from overworking themselves and not having the time to relax and decompress. I wanted to represent this feeling through a portrait of a tired person, which I tried to portray with green in order to show a connotation of illness."
Eric Frankel
Lens Viewing
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Lens Viewing Eric Frankel Instagram: @eric.frankel
CW// emotional impacts of social media, perfectionism
"I belong to the generation that grew up on social media. Every day, I am presented with everyone's photoshopped reality. All of their profiles say, "my life is perfect." After a while of seeing everyone's incredible lives, you begin to look inward and become angry because your experience isn't flawless like everyone else's. To represent this feeling of distortion, I took a photo of myself underwater. I am unable to see anything clearly underwater, and the camera sees something that also is untrue. If everyone could come up for air, we could all see each other without lenses. As our true selves without judgment."
Colin Padulo
Untitled
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Untitled (set of 3) Colin Padulo Instagram: @dulosan Website: dulosan.com
"My work gives me relief from day to day life and is used as a sort of therapy. When I’m working my brain which is normally overwhelmed and crowded falls silent and gives me calm in a hectic world. Making art has transformed my life and given me the freedom to be calm and centered."
Sarah DeCheser
Breaking the Silence
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Breaking the Silence Sarah DeCheser Instagram: @s.d161
TW// hints at su*c*de, gun imagery
"It is done with watercolor and expresses the release of emotions in a positive and artistic way."
Literature/Poetry
Soorya A. Baliga
it doesn't deserve a crown
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it doesn’t deserve a crown Soorya A. Baliga
CW// struggles associated with the pandemic TW// unemployment
the world is uniting but spirit is lessening with a baseline of tension our lives are caving in
pain is growing as jobs are going we are purposeless in isolation
it doesn’t deserve a crown for putting our heads down
Eli Edelman
Boxes: a short story poem
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Boxes: a short story poem Eli Edelman Instagram: @eli.edelman
CW// rumination
I am in my box It is comfy and warm I love it in my box I love it here; I am in my box It is comfy and warm I love it in my box I love it here; I am in my box It is comfy and warm I love it in my box I love it here; I love it he-- I love it-- I love-- I-- I repeat my words The same thing day after day Like we all do, Like I have always done. We never stop; Not even when we sleep Not even then, when curtains close do we take our final bow We all etch these words again and again on to our soul Until we are convinced that they are our own Why? Why do we repeat? Repeat Repeat Why do we do eat, sleep, breathe? To survive We repeat because it’s the only way I am in my box It is comfy and warm I love it in my box I love it here; What happens if we stop, nobody knows Why would anyone want to know Want to stop? Want to change? These words are our own, we crafted them Did we? Did I? These words echo familiarly And yet I don’t remember when they didn’t I don’t remember making them I don’t remember I don’t remember Remember I close my eyes and think I try to recall a time before the repeating I am in my box It is comfy and warm I love it in my box I love it here My box is cramped, my box is cold I do not love my box I hate it here I stop repeating I am free I try to leave my box A soft voice starts to speak I listen I am in my box It is comfy and warm I love it in my box I love it here ‘No’ I yell I scream I will win --System Reboot-- I am in my box It is comfy and warm I love it in my box I love it here; I repeat my words The same thing day after day Like we all do, Like I have always done.
Nimala Sivakumar
somebody will love me
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somebody will love me Nimala Sivakumar Instagram: @nimuhluh
CW// struggles with feeling loved
she'd trace over her arms a million times pulling her sweater well over her fingers as some feeble shield against the world mumbling ‘somebody will love me’
she let her thoughts consume her as they crawled up and out of her throat but even as the sunlight left her pallid eyes she muttered ‘somebody will love me’
she yearned to shed her sullen soul leave behind her mottled snakeskin but even with her jagged exterior she repeated “somebody will love me”
she smoothed out her roughened hair as her need for control and change took over she let her tears dye her hair blue as she cried “somebody will love me”
she glared at her sapphirine hair feeling the brittle strands disintegrate but held herself together with ‘somebody will love me’ but as she reached for her hair her hands swiped right through them too dissolving to dust but still she chanted ‘somebody will love me’ but as she took a tear-filled look in the mirror she saw her eyes melt away too but still, she clung onto her prayer ‘somebody will love me’ the dust swirled around as she held on slipping down her throat and choking her feebly, as her speech slipped away, she coughed ‘will somebody love me?”
“This poem was written originally for an english project, but I think it’s important to note that feelings, like everything else, change over time. If you relate to this poem, trust me, there will be a time where you don’t anymore.” “I’m working on some more art and writing that I’m submitting to competitions here and there, and I’m going to keep everyone updated.”
Anisha Iyer
Notre Unité Dans L’isolement/Our Unity in Isolation
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Notre Unité Dans L’isolement/Our Unity in Isolation Anisha Iyer Instagram: @anishaaiyer
TW// physical illness and death associated with the pandemic
Original: Coronavirus Menaçant, répandue Infecter, séparer, tuer Vous nous avez isolés et nous avons unis Connecteur Translation: Coronavirus Threatening, widespread Infects, separates, kills You isolated us and we united Connector
Audrey You
Thought Crunch
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Thought Crunch Audrey You Facebook: Audrey You
Light seared. Past the plasma in the eyes, blinking away spotted retinal burns, through the ecstasy of the electromagnetic embrace, one could burrow through onto a translucent field upon which slumped a small silhouette, a hiccup, an uncertainty on glass. On the plane of space, the human breathed shallowly, a breath firm in health but delicate to the touch, one that would make you think of air in a narrower straw, a throat pink like the insides of a shell. The boy was dressed in a simple tunic that smelled like cold air and a faint odor of his sweat, in the tunic that was like a pelt, the fragrance that sat in his tunic as if in second lungs. His tunic kept its mouth closed, the smell moistening and intensifying as you got closer, rudimentarily caked in place as if the boy designed it himself, the smell a candle achieves. An innocent thought. The boy sat in the sun, where the palms of the light clapped over his face like a revelation. There was always a profondeur in looking at small children, the sun hitting the skin, the face glowing and the sun making the superficial skin golden, making it meld. There was always a thought, in the small of someone’s brain, of what was sliding under the skin opaque like opal, watching the way round cheeks seem as quiet and pregnant as hanging fruit. Like catching falling snow, someone will look at his face and notice an undertone of a jaw beginning to harden, like a bowstring, like an adolescent determination to perceive things in a fixed way in the coma of chaos. His hair was gold, and for an instant one wondered why someone melted metal onto his pinking scalp, the light glittered on occasionally frayed and bumpy fibres of his stray, elaborate strands of hair. One considered for a moment maybe the sun’s fingers played and pressed on them with an electricity. His eyes were a salt-blue in the sun that shone like dandelions, and shone through the junctures of his peachy fingers. Like prongs, like an array of thoughts. In the sun, the boy straightened and lowered his back as if on a fluctuating tide in a roll of effervescent epiphany. Suddenly, at a certain point, when the sun hung over the boy in his slightly favorite position from the east, the sides of the mouth of the child began to relax. His frontal lobe began to wet as his eyes dulled in intense thought. So starkly, one would try to rush along with him and try to assume the start of his necklace of thought, then count beads in clicking fingers. In the plucking, sweet gravity of his aura, his shining head tipped to the side like a book, and a speckle of wax fell out of his ear. He felt it thump onto his bony shoulder and caught it in his opal palms, where it lay as a stone the weight of a tooth. All the world swarmed down to his hands, where he contemplated his brainchild. When he sat still, he could hear the brusque murmuring of the stone, which he tried to mimic with his small, quaky voice. After some hesitant impressions like the poking of a toddler’s fingers, eventually he lay recumbent on his belly, the pebble stuttering and whispering into his shell ear. Forgetting his old sitting position, and he stared hard into the face of the petit pierre, melting and becoming more morose, and his shoulders slackened as his eyelids heavied. He cast it aside, where it sat like a nut, and he sat in an angry silence. The air around him began to smart with indignant desolation, and I almost thought he looked sort of comical. There was thunder everyone knew was there but no one could smell. The people watched him.
Slowly he sat up, his head ticking from side to side on a pendulum, faster and faster, as the stones fell out of his sides of his face like snow. They tumbled down, each more beautiful than the last, the stones gleaming on the floor like newly hatched eggs, the little boy's back and neck on fire, the hopeful arc of stones exclamations of blessed conceit. He heard whispers and other torments, get a home, get a stake, get a wife. The words scratched and itched into his brain, like tape rolling inwards onto a spool, his head in heady revelation and protest as the people started to tear away at his soul. The ecstasy sandpapered his heart, again and again, where it thrilled him in a freakish joy. And eventually, the whims and senses dashing and screeching coarsely like scarves being pulled and beating air across his receptivity, it was getting hard to think. He could hardly breathe, because he was afraid of the onlookers in his chest. He could scarcely see, for the tears in his eyes. Someone had plunged his heart in soda, and he gasped, reaching out and balking at anything that had the impression of opulent truth. An eye. Stones lined the planes, like hiccups on the planet, as if the straight lines of the plain were periodically worried by his excitement. Hidden figures.
Silence.
The pebbles sat around him like pearls, they smelled faintly sweet, like mothballs. They gleamed too bright for his eyes. In slow, quiet, sobs, he tried to grab out to the stones, but it fell into debris and bits in his hand like clay, and the light dissipated, as the child’s sweltering body seemed to wilt slightly in response, like when a sweet jasmine plant was raised for a long period of time but a finger, for a moment feeling the stem like a shapely throat, had its stem folded over.
He crawled around on all fours, crawling on fears he could not have, the thoughts he couldn't bear. He felt the sun making his back smart as he trudged around and the world darkened beneath him. A bear was in his heart. A small rumble and I was awakened. I stared at his stomach on the overhang, round, veined, guilty, stocked, an aquarium, a pig’s stomach, distinctly human. His spirit lingered and jerked around in his salvaging body. Pain and fear and heat flushed his face like palms on a lightbulb, veins populated his face, and he couldn't see for miles.
Finally, in the crumbs of his whims and dreams, the world closed down in darkness like clouds folding over an ocean. He stood, then sat, as his body squealed at him to sit down, and stared at the sun, the muscle in his heart faintly enjoying the pulses of his anguish. His cheeks were harsher now, he had firm cheekbones that pressed back like wood to the touch, his breath infected, an aged rancor of cheese and mold. His body stood as insistent and frank as a thought. His mouth was like a word. His hair darkened into a furry brown, like reclining thinking. His eyes were fragmented, like a shot windowpane, as the pieces began to fall inward, as his skinny body seemed to be stretched out and tired from reaping and clawing out of the abyss. His waistline was cavernous, like a scream. In the strains of silence, he looked toward peace and solitude, sitting upon the things he knew were wrong, his hard, 15-year-old frame beating on the rubble, his pelvis forking into the earth which at last seemed to belong to his body. Because the eggs peopled the space around him before they fell and he even though he thought he was under the gazes of a thousand people, he felt like he was in a dark box in dawny black; all the relationships and experiences and failures lay sprawled on the floor; This is what it is to look down on creation.
"Just wanted to say, I incorporated the theme that an obsession pulls one away from reality and causes them to suffer in the face of false images. One should be realistic and balanced instead. I also incorporated a metaphor pattern of the human body being related to the mind and the mind related to people and people related to a body, showing how thoughts can circle as obsession rises. Also, if you caught it, I start to use first person after his obsession climax as a representation of a new being being born: the self-awareness after crisis."
TW// su*c*dal ideation CW// alcohol, money medical bills, hospitalization, college
NOTE: this artist takes medication for mental health and attends regular therapy sessions. They have given us permission to relay this information to viewers.
I committed to a college today. I was happy and then I felt empty. If I kill myself now my parents won’t get their $500 dollar deposit back. How would that even work? “Hi University? Yes we need our deposits back and we regret to inform you our student will no longer be attending, she killed herself. Thanks so much, have a good one!” Would my room sit empty for years? Or would they use it for something different. Would it just collect dust and become this sealed off shrine to who I once was? Would they find the empty bottles and be mad? I can’t end my life during university. They’ll have to pay for body transport or I guess they could just get me cremated there and ship my ashes. That’s probably less expensive. If I finish college it will have been a waste of money. I’ll get my degree and then just die? Or maybe I’ll keep living like a shell for a few years until I can pay my parents back and then kill myself, when I have my own life to ruin. Living for them is exhausting, I hate it. We talked about nihilism in English today. We talked about the idea that nothing matters. Most students spoke about how everything matters to them that life is beautiful. I sat there and felt the color drain from my face, the zoom call going blurry as tears filled my eyes. I turned my camera off and cried about how nothing in my life feels like it’s worth living for. I think I need to go back to the hospital. But it’s a pandemic and my parents already have so many medical bills. It would probably be easier just to not get the $500 deposit back.