Separation Anxiety

One day, I was feeling extremely nostalgic about my time here at UD, as it has been 4 amazing years devoted to studies and developing strong relationships with my friends. I considered what my feelings were and realized that I had layers of emotions cradled in the arms of nostalgia, and unfortunately pressured by separation anxiety. I began working on a painting, and the first one to come out of this understanding of my emotions was the deep blue-purple piece directly above. I was actually working backwards; these paintings represent the stages of that separation anxiety and the first painting was the last stage of how I would feel --- that of a tranquil acceptance of the changes occurred.

The next painting I engaged in starts from the initial reaction to the realization of separation anxiety (middle red painting). In thie regard, I considered my pain of leaving the UD environment as my life had indeed revolved so much around it. I brought myself to a deeper self-awareness of how my physiology would be affected by separation anxiety and I realized that I would be short of breath, flushed feeling, and literally feeling "cut-off" from the environment. I say "cut-off" because when you realize that you will not be seeing these same people, or doing these things you are accustomed to, the heartfelt bonds feel severed and there creeps into your soul a seemingly irreparable vacuity. Therefore, I created this painting with textured paint (oil paint mixed with wood chips and sawdust), and primarily used my palette knife to create the chopped-up texture. I also tried blending several shades of red to indicate the varying degrees of my emotions and to add some depth to the composition.

The painting I next completed (and last of the series!), is one about memories. I did this painting with my fingers, (don't do it with your fingers unless you have skin barrier cream or gloves on!) as I wanted to actually be in the painting throughout the process. Process is critical for me, as it is in that realm of creating that I understand why I am painting this painting and who I am as a person that is painting this piece. Therefore, the texture and strokes in the paint are created completely from my fingers. The multitude of colors reflects all my memories from UD reoccurring all at once in my mind as I realize that nostalgia cloaked in separation anxiety forces all the emotions out at once, colliding and careening all over the canvas.

Hence, the order in which the pieces will be displayed is "Separation Anxiety: Initial Pain", "Separation Anxiety: Memories", and "Separation Anxiety: Tranquil Acceptance".