Zoe Delisle

Unraveling Portraits

This piece explores my relationship with mental health and my ongoing struggle with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. As the portraits progress, the subject continues to unravel which serves as a visualization of untreated mental illness. It was originally inspired by the six hour composition, "Everywhere at the End of Time," which over the course of its creation morphed into my own intermingled identity with mental health as opposed to strictly what I saw in the music. Now, as a finished piece, it reflects my experience through the hardest parts of my mental health journey as seen through my own eyes. The application of form is crucial to this piece as it creates the interest in each subject that separates each panel from the next. Subsequently, the decaying form that still contains human elements is what tells the story throughout the piece. Along with exploring form in this piece, I delved more into focusing on tone. I wanted to create a juxtaposition of colors in the first portraits and slowly have the pieces turn muddled and sink into the background tones in order to accurately reflect the feeling of becoming your mental illness and losing the pieces that give you contrast.