Artist Statement 

My FMP features a digital journal that chronicles my ongoing experience with scoliosis, a medical condition. It narrates the range of emotions related to pain, and I created this journal to share my journey since being diagnosed with scoliosis at the age of 2 years old. My aim is to transform my pain into visual art pieces that reflect my life with scoliosis and the associated emotions. I want to depict different feelings throughout my work. When viewers explore the journal, each art piece conveys a part of my story through my condition.

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I was inspired by artists such as Chuck Close and Frida Kahlo, who have medical conditions and express their experiences through their artwork, capturing pain and emotion. I aimed to develop a journal that illustrates her medical condition and her perception of the pain she faces daily, telling her personal journey. My work includes various pieces created in different media, such as drawings, photography, and artwork. I wanted to use my own X-ray from when she was 16, after I had metal rods put in her spine, and came up with the idea to turn her X-rays into different colours. For the recent project, I did this because every time you see an X-ray, it’s always black-and-white, so she decided to change that and transform them into different colours to make them more interesting to look at. For my journal, I use models with straight spines for some pieces; for others, I use my own spine to create the artwork. I produced these for the digital journal.

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I was also inspired by artworks that use spines and scoliosis as themes. As part of my digital journal, I create artworks, including drawings and pieces made from various materials. I use her own spine in some artworks to depict what is visible externally and the complex emotions involved. I use two different models and myself to create the artwork for her digital journal. I have created a mould that resembles a spine so that when people look at it, they can understand what it is like to see a curved spine, because not many people know how severe scoliosis can be. Usually, all people see from the outside of your body is a curved spine, so my work is to create a version of the spine mould that people can view. Overall, the digital journal is both a personal journey and a story told through different art pieces I have created for the journal.