Before the Brushstroke: Weight of Silence

The foundations of this piece were built upon my own experiences with mental health, alongside the immediate and often difficult issues surrounding men’s mental health.

At the age of seventeen, I attempted suicide. Much of the time surrounding the event itself remains blurred, but the feelings and state of mind I experienced have become clearer as the years have passed. With time and maturity, I have been able to revisit those emotions, turning them over in my mind and developing a deeper understanding of what I was experiencing.

The circumstances that led me to that point felt almost like a dance; a constant movement between my mental and physical health struggles, personal difficulties, and the adrenaline and excitement of the good things happening in my life. Those positive moments repeatedly pulled me back from the edge, creating a tension between despair and the things that kept me moving forward.

It was this idea of a dance between opposing forces that became the foundation of the painting and formed the image of the distorted dancer.

But I felt the piece needed something more; something that could represent the enemy within the mind, and the danger that comes from continuing this precarious dance. This was when I introduced the tiger.

I was initially conflicted by this choice, as I have always loved tigers and see them as magnificent animals. Yet, like many things, they are multifaceted. They possess qualities that aligned closely with the ideas I was trying to explore within the painting. Their beauty and power exist alongside an undeniable sense of danger and unpredictability.

This duality became important to the piece. The tiger is not simply a symbol of something evil, but a presence that is both beautiful and threatening, something that can be admired while still demanding caution. For me, this reflected the complexity of the mind itself and the dangers that can emerge when that internal dance begins to move beyond our control.

This idea of a multifaceted creature aligned closely with my own thoughts and experiences surrounding mental health and suicide. While there can be immense pain within a person’s mind, slowly driving them towards the decisions they are making, there can also be a strange sense of peace that comes with believing that a decision has been made and that an end is known.

For me, this was always one of the most terrifying aspects of that period of my life. Looking back now, it is not only the pain that stays with me, but the unsettling calm that could exist alongside it. These two opposing states; turmoil and tranquillity, fear and acceptance, could somehow occupy the same space.

That contradiction connected naturally with the symbolism of the tiger. Its beauty exists alongside its danger; its stillness does not make it harmless. In much the same way, an outward or internal sense of calm does not necessarily mean that the struggle has disappeared. It is this uneasy coexistence of beauty, danger, pain and peace that I wanted the painting to confront.