Shadow Self
LCAD Trustee Choice Award 2023 Winner | Illustration West 61 Exhibit
In this painting, I am visualizing my shadow-self. A shadow-self represents the parts of oneself that one finds difficult to accept. For me, this is my struggle with anxiety and panic attacks.
As crows often symbolize the shadow-self, I’m using the two crows around me to characterize the anxious side of myself that I have difficulty controlling. One crow sits over my head, acting as the anxiety that always looms over me. The other flies in front of me, chasing away the light and allowing my shadow-self to take over.
The facial expression in my self-portrait captures the difference between me and my shadow-self. The side of my face in the light is neutral and isn’t yet affected by the shadow. The other side is emoting the anxiety and worry provoked by my shadow-self. Ultimately, my goal was for the viewer to be able to isolate each half of my face and see the two different versions of myself.
The colors I use in this painting also separate these two versions of myself. The warm, red-toned world shines through on my face, but is quickly diminishing as the green, colder world takes over. While the warm light represents the real world and my real surroundings, I view the dark, cold world as the one my shadow-self resides in and the one I enter during my panic attacks.
I then have the branches closing in on my portrait to parallel the trapped and helpless feeling I often get when stuck in the body of my shadow-self.
