I create paintings to share with the world to raise awareness of ulcerative colitis, chronic illness and mental health. I created four pieces, a series I named 'Portrait of a Patient'.

Expression Days is a great opportunity to reach an even larger audience. I am delighted to be a part of it.

I was diagnosed with Ulcerative Colitis in 2006. What followed was 10+ years of pain, anxiety, depression, hospitalisation, medication, surgery and almost death. What also followed was awakening, awareness, gratitude and survival.

As I lay in hospital or at home in bed, I would often open my phone to write down how I was feeling. The words would flow out, sometimes rhyming, sometimes not, but I would always feel better afterwards. I would rarely revisit these notes or try to perfect them once the moment had passed.
After another major surgery in 2016 my health improved dramatically and I opened up my collection of notes/words/poems and curated them to best represent my cyclical journey of illness and health, and work on a visual representation.

Mouths opening and closing,
a quiet deafening hum of nothings and somethings
The unchangeable, the uncontrollable,
the solid steel certainty of subjective experience compounded
Ununiformed suggestions bubbling up
filling my ears and throat like tar consuming
No breath, no choice, drown in the glue
It is my skin now
Trapped in a world where everyone knows everything
I remain still questioning, stumbling
Defiantly doubting my false counter conviction
Yearning silence that I might hear
the feather of my own knowledge land
But it is blown by the wind of the many wise mouths.
Never landing.
Never sure.
It lives in turbulent perpetual undulation
#PORTRAITOFAPATIENT - OPPRESSION