My practice attempts to inquire into issues surrounding mental illness. The effects of it have touched me in a very personal manner and I am trying to explore how it may feel to suffer with such a life changing disease.

I also want my work to reflect ideas about how society reacts to mental illness. Scientifically we still know so little about the mind and maintain a ‘fear of the unknown’.

The nature of mental illness particularly Schizophrenia can often mean that a sufferer slips in and out of manic episodes and depression without any warning signs. My work seeks to translate this using the medium of light and shadow. Shadows which by their nature are unsustainable and echo the character of a fragile mind.

"I play-act my life, touching and feeling only shadows."
(Extract taken from an article wrote in March 1986 for the New York Times, by a woman suffering from Schizophrenia.)

The free bird leaps
On the back of the wind
And floats downstream
Till the current ends
And dips his wings
In the orange sun rays
And dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks
Down his narrow cage
Can seldom see through
His bars of rage
His wings are clipped and
His feet are tied
So he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings
With fearful trill
Of the things unknown
But longed for still
And is tune is heard
On the distant hill for the caged bird
Sings of freedom

The free bird thinks of another breeze
An the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
And the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn
And he names the sky his own.

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
His shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
His wings are clipped and his feet are tied
So he opens his throat to sing

The cage bird sings
With fearful trill
Of things unknown
But longer for still
And his tune is heard
On the distant hill
For the caged bird
Sings of freedom.

Maya Angelou