"Growing up, Uma could feel that there was something not right with her mental health, but didn’t have the vocabulary to describe what she was going through. She suffered from depression, anxiety, and paranoid thoughts. She went from being a straight-A student to failing classes on purpose. There was one subject she always excelled in, however: art. Art was an opportunity to express and externalize what words couldn’t.
As a teen, medical professionals couldn’t identify her disorder and often downplayed her symptoms, causing her to feel further isolated and short on hope. Through it all, however, she used art to express the complex emotions and psychological phenomena that plagued her -- not just the symptoms of the illness, but the feelings of frustration and helplessness that came from the mystery of her condition.
Eventually, around the time she graduated from high school, doctors finally recognized her illness as schizoaffective disorder. Now that she has gotten the appropriate therapy and medication, Uma is able to live and thrive despite her illness, living on her own in Chicago and attending the Art Institute of Chicago on scholarship.
ITR’s mission is to improve the quality of mental health care for all children, and in particular to make sure that the latest breakthroughs in research make it into widespread practice. Uma lent her art to be displayed on the walls of ITR, as a tribute to the difficulty of living with illness in the absence of proper treatment, and the healing that’s possible when the appropriate resources are available."
As a teen, medical professionals couldn’t identify her disorder and often downplayed her symptoms, causing her to feel further isolated and short on hope. Through it all, however, she used art to express the complex emotions and psychological phenomena that plagued her -- not just the symptoms of the illness, but the feelings of frustration and helplessness that came from the mystery of her condition.
Eventually, around the time she graduated from high school, doctors finally recognized her illness as schizoaffective disorder. Now that she has gotten the appropriate therapy and medication, Uma is able to live and thrive despite her illness, living on her own in Chicago and attending the Art Institute of Chicago on scholarship.
ITR’s mission is to improve the quality of mental health care for all children, and in particular to make sure that the latest breakthroughs in research make it into widespread practice. Uma lent her art to be displayed on the walls of ITR, as a tribute to the difficulty of living with illness in the absence of proper treatment, and the healing that’s possible when the appropriate resources are available."
~ Trevor Born, Communications Specialist at the Institute for Translational Research
I grew up as a traditional painter and in 2015, as a young adult, I began to use painting as a form of documentation. Although not diagnosed until my early twenties, I began to experience severe and chronic psychosis, or loss of touch with reality. This exhibition, which spans four years of work, showcases nineteen paintings that document the personal struggle with mental illness and its role in growing from an adolescent into a young adult. These paintings in both oil and acrylic are layered with collage and beeswax (encaustic) as well as unconventional materials like sand, staples, and yarn. I utilized and combined mediums in my self-portraits to create abstract and experimental works. My passion for personal development when dealing with adversity has led me to document the emotions associated with my teenage years and to inform others about mental illness.