2020

The body knows what the brain has buried. This revelation came to me after days spent in isolation, even before quarantining became a norm of 2020. Experiences with mental illness and severe depression had kept me from pursuing other artistic projects for months at a time. I decided my only option was to face head on what has haunted me and produce the suffering out of me, not unlike an exorcism. Catharsis via creation. 

What resulted was a collection of artwork that did not confine my identity to a painter or printmaker. Instead I became a memory miner...chipping away at my conscious and unconscious thoughts. I began extracting raw emotion and dark personal narratives, turning them into tangible artwork that forced me to wrestle with what I’ve tried to bury. While investigating the connections between mental illness and the concepts of shame consistently attached to the female identity, I found so many of my own painful truths have overlapped in the lived experiences of so many other women.

This work examines the ways in which our bodies remember trauma, and how these memories resurface in narratives revolving around surviving sexual violence. These themes intersect with the concept of healing, and navigating the nuances and politics found in the idea of healing in a capitalist world which functions to silence women. Combining my own stream of consciousness writing with sometimes disturbing imagery, this work serves to air out my own wounds while also provoking a shift of consciousness in the minds of others.

-M. L. McDougall