julia howe, pins and needles (BLACK & WHITE 2021)

Unseen. People tend to focus on what is seen – the obvious, visible data that captures their attention, ignoring what is unseen. Someone may appear happy, with a smile on their face, however they may be concealing darker emotions. Another ‘unseen’ is hidden illnesses which may be invisible on the surface but be crippling within. I chose this theme, motivated by my own experiences with chronic pain, are often met with disbelief from my peers due to lack of visibility. Through my exploration of the idea of the unseen in this series, I plan to utilise portraiture and symbolism to create visual representations for pain and suffering, increasing the viewers understanding and hopefully reducing the some of the stigma that hidden mental and physical conditions have. I have explored the different ways to describe pain and investigate ways to metaphorically and symbolically illustrate them through portraiture. For example, pain can be piercing, and this could be represented by barbed wire coiled around a subject’s limb.

Images have been resized for web display, which may cause some loss of image quality. Note: Original high-resolution images are used for judging.