‘Everyone carries a shadow and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is”. Carl Jung

Beneath the carefully constructed social masks we wear we all have aspects of ourselves that we don’t like or think that society will disapprove of. These ‘inappropriate’ parts of ourselves: our immoral urges, irrational fears, sexual desires and shameful experiences all form ‘shadow’ parts of ourselves which, for the most part, we seek to deny. Women are often shamed for owning their desire, men for displaying fear and vulnerability. Rather than confronting, accepting and integrating these threatening aspects of ourselves, our mind often pretends they don’t exist. For to acknowledge the messy, uncontained, stimulating yet terrifying parts of our mind threatens the image of who we imagine ourselves to be. 

 Messy Beautiful explores and gives voice to these more unconscious parts of our psyche. It looks to embrace these aspects of our nature which make us human and pose the question “can we completely accept who we are if there are aspects of ourselves that we are too afraid to explore?”

Exhibited at EDGE Galleries