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HIDE AND SEEK
Oil on canvas
90x90cm
Year 2022
1600 euros
A painting inspired by anxiety, where I bring in a new character to my world, an anxiety ghost. Anxiety is something a lot of people struggle with and I’m no exception… It can submerge you; all your thoughts and emotions embody the thing we describe as anxiety. Anxiety is not a danger lurking around your house, waiting for you behind a dark corner, no, it's all in your head. Maybe it's inspired by some events, mine are but at the moment of anxiety you are alone in your head that makes you feel like you are in hell. Anxiety doesn't just arrive unannounced and out of nowhere, it is a result of our habits of thoughts. This is where the anxiety ghost comes into my story… It is that thought that arises, it sparks an interest of our mind that gets involved and then the feelings follow. Do this enough time and it become instinctive, you just need a reminder, a shadow of that thought to spiral into anxiety. The ghost is not dangerous on its own but when he has possessed you, you lose yourself. This is not a danger but a life unlived.
Fear had possessed me, then anxiety, and I would walk through the streets without seeing the world around me. I would see this state as someone putting a mask over my face that has no opening for me to see, so I don’t see far and all I see is dark. It feels like you limit yourself to this tiny space and yet, seance it's all that you see it becomes your whole world. The ghost is still here, his tiny adorable self, doing nothing to give you discomfort, but you and I do all the work of trapping ourselves in the dark. The ghost is a breeze of a thought, the more you get into the habit of thinking the less the thought has to be clear. It can be a light feeling or an image pops in your head and you are putting the mask on, stop living and start daydreaming of your personalized hell. The ghosts are there to make a mess by just letting us do the imagining of the worst and I would imagine they laugh at our obsession with problems and I can see how that can be funny. The teachers that laugh are the best teachers, they show us that we take life too seriously for something that will, soon enough, end. Anxiety is a wise teacher, and I don’t say you have to live through anxiety to learn but that's how I’ve learned, more than I ever thought possible. And that's why I named this painting “Hide and Seek” because fear made me want to hide but anxiety made me seek myself and what I have found has brought me back to living life fully.
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