These are the only images that went into the show that were made since I stopped drinking. I wasn't able to look myself in the face while I was still drinking let alone make a self portrait. I still haven't made a self portrait. These are lies. In the top image I was going through terrible withdrawal from an anti-depressant I'd been on. They hadn't been working so we increased the dosage till it got sky high and I started having audio hallucinations. We then dropped the dose but too quickly and I spent days feeling like spiders were crawling inside my skin and I was convinced there was something living in my wardrobe. Before I took the photograph I'd been crying my eyes out for hours and I didn't think the pain was ever going to stop. The second I'm in front of the lens I tilt my head and try and look pretty. I hadn't showered in days because the feeling of water on my skin on top of the "spiders" in my skin made me feel too sick & I'm trying to pull off pretty.
The photograph in the middle was at 1st a pretty honest picture of me crying. I'd started digging up somethings I'm not so proud of in therapy and I was quite raw afterward. For me the image was too close to the bone so I very subtly changed the contrast and colour of the image. Now when I see it I can remember the original and all I see is the changes. This is an image of what it might look like if I was being honest and open.
The final image was taken a couple of weeks before I did the show so I'm stone cold sober though I don't look it. It's a lie of omission because for it to fit with the others I'd have needed to put in the photograph I took befor it. I used to struggle with self harming, I can't really hide that from people as scars have a way of telling tales on me. It hasn't been a problem for a very long time now but sometimes I still get obsessional thoughts about it. A good friend had suggested I take photographs as a displacement activity. I used my mobile phone camera as it was what was to hand and made some pretty scary looking images. Looking through them I started laughing at how angry and serious I looked. I turned the camera back on myself and stuck my tongue out at my self. A much healthier form of self abuse if ever there was one.
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