WORDS OF WISDOM

April 22-26, 2024

A Visual Arts MFA thesis exhibiton by Emma Feliciano.

As someone living with anxiety, I am frustrated by the hollow phrases people say in an attempt to quickly pacify a situation, instead of listening to me. I use text-based art so that these phrases can no longer be ignored or seen as the solutions to mental health crises. Words of Wisdom is a series of text-based artworks that encourage the viewer to reflect on the language they use when responding to or discussing mental health issues.

I began the project by asking people “What is the worst advice you have ever received during a mental health crisis?” Responses to this question provide the source material for the text in each piece. Despite good intentions, these statements demonstrate a lack of understanding and sensitivity towards mental health issues. I confront the viewer with large, colourful, and disorienting versions of these phrases to convey their inanity.

Each piece features vibrant colours and abstracted text. The text is intended to be difficult to read and takes on a camouflaging effect in some of the pieces. This camouflage effect references the everyday strategies people engage to conceal - or camouflage - their own struggles with mental health. The combination of the intense hues and illegible text simulates the disorientation experienced during a panic attack. I create each piece to be overstimulating because I want my viewer to feel as frustrated looking at the work, as the person who received the advice felt.

Emma Feliciano

'Blots, again Blots' explores identity formation within varied, especially hierarchical, social environments, emphasizing the continuous impact of displacement and cultural dichotomies. The project is significantly influenced by the ongoing 'Women, Life, Freedom' movement led by Iranian women, highlighting how the unstable conditions in Iranian society have crucially shaped its development. 

The core of this project is a blend of live painting performances and painting installations, which respond to the tension and ongoing sense of being 'in-between'—not fully belonging to either the origin or the current environment. The live painting performance features me actively engaging with the canvas, using a human-scale slingshot to draw words that emerge from my thoughts. These words transform into abstract, unreadable marks. Accompanying this performance, the painting installations allow viewers to navigate through spaces constructed of PVC pipes and bands. These installations connect paintings of various sizes, mirroring the interaction between the internal and external self, based on the observed interactions.