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| Page 1 of the gray journal |
In a panapticon-like world, anxiety builds up in the body like oxygen. Constant surveillance leaves tightness. The skulls represent the fear of death. Frozen in gray and white. Frozen in one's learned helplessness. The many metaphorical deaths a person must live while being trapped beneath the unrelenting pressure of the panapticon.
This work is a translation of constant panic. It is an -arguably- abstract state in the body and mind but here it is translated. Something to look at and move beyond.
🏛 What is The Panopticon?
Definition: A prison design proposed by Jeremy Bentham (18th c.), where a central watchtower allows guards to observe all inmates, while inmates cannot know if they are being watched.
👤 Michel Foucault
In Discipline and Punish (1975), Foucault used the Panopticon as a metaphor for modern systems of surveillance and power, where everyday people self-police because they may always be under observation.
The Story and Symbolism of the Painting
The left page bursts with blue birds, their sharp beaks and talons around a central skull consumed by red and yellow flames. It is a society trapped in decay and constant threat. The flames symbolize the ever-present and unyielding distrust and fear. The ever-watchful birds mirror the suffocating surveillance.
The dark, aggressive lines mimic the constriction of breath during panic. The clustered birds, sharp and restless, echo this nervous energy caught in a loop. This somatic tension that this painting tries to emulate is throat tightness, shallow breathing, a racing heart.
This painting and art in general offers a pathway to release this pressure. Creating external symbols of anxiety that shifts internal energy from freeze or fight to flow. The act of shaping fears into form enables a subtle recalibration of the nervous system.
Try this prompt: Draw your own birds