Artist Statement

Adison Segraves

When I started my sustained investigation, I was investigating what made me "me". I was investigating all the life events that got me to where I was today. However, as i came to understand myself more through this investigation, i had to come to terms with how i really felt about all these things that i went through. It wasn't until recently I began to attend therapy and it began to click that what I created was a reflection of the state of my mental health. With this, my essential question became "how does my mental illness affect my life". Many of my artworks feature a young girl experiencing many harrowing events, or in states of distress. The character that I created to represent myself became a tool that I could use to express how I feel about my circumstances, elaborate on what I was going through. My sustained investigation has become a coping mechanism, a manifesto of my mental illness, a way for me to express how I really feel about myself and my surroundings.