Kailyn Sawhny - KKS COLLECTIVE

DIGITAL COLLAGES

all photographs used are mine

PHYSICAL COLLAGES

The Shape I Am In

I started experiencing consistent feelings of depression and anxiety this past summer. I tried to ignore these feelings, but it was impossible. I felt them become increasingly prominent as time went on. I felt so burnt out and defeated during the Fall of 2024. This semester, when I was on Prozac long enough to feel its effects, I felt like a stranger to myself — numb, detached, and unstable — and others began to notice the change in me as well

This collage is the most vulnerable piece of art I have ever created. It truly displays my raw emotions and thoughts. It’s a reflection of the state of mind I was in the last few months of my life. It was miserable. I was too depressed to take care of myself. Brushing my teeth every night for two full minutes was too large of a task. I developed four cavities. It’s embarrassing. I would skip classes because I couldn't, for the life of me, get out of bed. I was suffering from insomnia that 25mg of melatonin every night couldn't fix. I was never able to put my mind to rest. I was exhausted, depressed, and anxious for most of my days. After taking Prozac for a few months, I started to ignore all my responsibilities and became numb. I began to smoke weed to cope, not just to have a little fun on a random Saturday night anymore. I did it so I could temporarily feel something because that was better than feeling nothing at all. This collage is the truth - truly, nothing here is exaggerated for “shock value.” This collage reflects my thoughts and feelings. We have discussed the tragic versus the sordid in art extensively this past semester. I wanted to capture the tragedy, the hauntingly beautiful imagery that is both abstract and unquestionably real. I believe I successfully achieved the abstractness and reality in this piece.

My process included gathering the things I had written in past journal entries and re-living the mindset I was once in. There are scraps of a piece of paper with writing in Sharpie and pink crayon all over it. I wrote these things when I was feeling extremely numb. I hated that I couldn’t feel anything, and I didn’t know what else to do than write my thoughts down on paper. I wrote things like “I WANT TO FEEL NORMAL AGAIN” and “WHO THE FUCK HAVE I BECOME.” I collaged pages from past journal entries and also re-wrote some of them in blue oil pastel. One entry says, “I don't feel as engaged in conversation as I once did with people” and “My mind is my biggest enemy and it won't shut off.” Additionally, I wrote down what other people said to me when they started to notice I was acting differently in purple oil pastel. The one comment that still hurts me to this day came from a close friend. It reads, “I'm glad you’re experimenting with your meds now because if this was your freshman year or postgrad (a time when I would be meeting new people), no one would want to be friends with you.” My collage features a handful of faces that I consider self-portraits, heavily inspired by Basquiat. They are filled with fear, delusion, and mania, and they are unrecognizable, all things I felt. I wrote down the poem The Summer Day, by Mary Oliver on the bottom left of my collage because the question “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” has been weighing heavily on my mind since I heard it. I feel like I have been wasting my life being sad and moping around, and I hate that I had no control over my emotions. I’m still recovering from this and trying to regain control over my life.

The Summer Day

Who made the world?

Who made the swan, and the black bear?

Who made the grasshopper?

This grasshopper, I mean—

the one who has flung herself out of the grass,

the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,

who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down—

who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.

Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.

Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

I don't know exactly what a prayer is.