Art has always been a part of my life, my dad influenced me from a young age to express myself visually and it has kind of become a means of survival for me now. When first introduced to art, I wasn’t super into it, I thought it was a waste of time. But when I moved schools and I was going through some really heavy shit I found a passion for it; almost a means of therapy for me, to understand my feelings, and emotions, and mind.

 

 

I think the world is full of such rich flavour and amazement. I find history really fascinating, people like Andy Warhol, Woody Allen, and Jim Carrey are some of my biggest inspirations since they have lived through the times of the 60s/70s and 80s which were times of change and revolutions all over the world. The way Jim Carrey uses his humour and art to express himself and his mind is so relatable to me. Music is also so influential to me, I listen to the Beatles, Joni Mitchell, Queen, Bowie and Billy Holiday. Artists who lived for their passion and wrote about pain and hurt and rebellion and change and had such vibrancy doing it.

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Van Gough is another one of my biggest influences, he captured pain like no other artist ever. he painted sorrow and guilt and he was so underrated and unspoken of in his time. That internal struggle found in his works, I can see in myself, you can see how he felt and how he viewed things through his eyes, blinded by his struggles with mental illness. I always try to be like that in every work of mine.

 

 

I gather a lot of inspiration, also, from observing. I’m really fascinated with psychology and body language. I will often people watch. I wonder what they have done in their lives before that moment and what they’ll do after. What hurt have they felt, how they overcome it, what makes them unique.

 

"The beautiful simplicity of strangers is my biggest curiosity."

 

 

 

A lot of my work comes from a place of pain. I find that the more upset, angry or sad I am the better the art or the more I do. That’s not to say that I am sad all the time but it's definitely something that contributes. (I’m okay, is what I’m trying to say.)

 

 

My art comes from a place of anxiety, and childhood confusion about who I was and who I am. It’s a means of me trying to understand my unconscious mind, constantly trying to understand my phobia, my fears, and my hardships. It comes from a place of not fitting in, always being called weird and not understanding why. It comes from a place of angst and anger toward things I can’t control. It stemmed from struggling with eating disorders, pulling my hair out, body issues, suicidal thoughts and a whole bunch of things.

 

"Art is my one way of making sense of my anxiety and understanding what I’m feeling."

 

 

I am passionate about mental health. I have suffered from emetophobia (fear of vomiting/ others vomiting) since I was six and its always been a heavy burden to hold. I have a lot of social anxiety and I’m quite introverted. I struggled with a deep dose of depression and a lot of the time I woke up just wanting to go back to being asleep again. I think ever since that dark part of my life I have a really big passion for raising awareness for mental health and especially for young men who, because of this ideal ‘masculinity’, seem to not be as open as girls are.

 

 

Mental illness amongst young boys is massive, we lose 12 boys between the ages of 15-25 every day due to suicide. Knowing two boys myself who I have lost to suicide, it’s honestly one of the hardest things I’ve ever experienced and something that will always be impacting on my life. I’ve also noticed girls being really dependent on the boys in their life. I don’t know if its just within my area but I notice girls depending on the attention of teenage boys (which lasts about 5 minutes) to measure their self-worth. To me, that is really fucked up, I think girls need to feel okay being totally open about themselves and confident in who they are before loving someone else. In the wise words of RuPaul,

 

‘If you can’t love yourself how in the hell you gonna love someone else?!”

 

I’m really passionate about LGBTQIA rights, I think especially within Australia there is always work needing to be done to reduce (again) this idea of masculinity and femininity and who it belongs to. Recently I got inspired by Eileen Kelly (killerandasweetthang on IG) who has founded and run first hand a whole website and company dedicated to talking about sexual health, I think its important as young women and men that we are aware and open about safe sex, talking about sex, contraception and other things.

 

I know going to an all-girls Catholic school the sex ed classes aren’t exactly fantastically open to educating girls on the do’s and don’t’s of being sexually active but I read her website and she honestly answers questions I have and has medical professionals which mean her sources are reliable.

 

 

Teenage brains are not wired right yet, I think that’s something everyone forgets. Biologically female teenage brains don’t fully develop until the early 20s and boys, a little bit later. We get all up in our head about stupid shit.

 

 

You don’t have to pretend to like someone, just because your friends like them.

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You don’t have to keep streaks with people, let alone have any social media, just because other people do.

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Don’t feel left out of things that weren’t that good.

 

As teens, we tend to exaggerate a lot, about how good a party was or how good whatever the fuck was, most likely, it was boring and sweaty and gross and you would have gone home early anyway.

 

I think teenage years are the hardest because we forget to take things with a grain of salt and you forget to think about the fact that high school is literally not even a quarter of what your life is, so it doesn’t even really matter what happens in these years.

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Don’t hold social media and other petty materialistic things as high on a priority list because at the end of the day the people you meet today won’t mean much 20 years down the road and you won’t remember the 256-day streak you lost with Becky. And if Becky gets angry at you for losing a streak that tells you that Becky ain’t that good of a friend after all.

 

 

“You won’t remember the 256-day streak you lost with Becky. And if Becky gets angry at you for losing a streak that tells you that Becky ain’t that good of a friend after all.”

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I think the youth of today faces an issue with a dependence on social media. When you think about it social media is just a whole bunch of advertising techniques; snap chat streaks are there to make sure you come back to the app each day - just as one example. Social media isn’t important and my advice to you is to turn off all your notifications because the people that truly care for you will find another way to talk to you.

 

 

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I think Perth has an underground (deep underground) art scene which I am slowly starting to immerse myself into. I think Perth holds a lot of history and relaxed vibes unlike other states in Australia like Melbourne or Sydney, which don’t get me wrong, are amazing for their art scene and lifestyle and all that but Perth has this relaxed no bullshit kind of vibe unlike the hustle and bustle of Melbs or Sydney. I think the community is small and tight-knit and that means its easy to make connections and meet like-minded people pretty quickly. I think Perth has some of the best surfing spots (not that I surf) and some of the most salvaged history in Australia.

 

It’s home.