“I suffer from social anxiety, and sometimes it feels like the whole world is spiky. Over a base of wavy pink lines indicating the flow of social space, I used alcohol inks to make spiky creatures and to give them unblinking, all staring eyes. I visualized myself overwhelmed by the amorphous crowd in a swirling maelstrom of anxiety.”
Dr. Kate Sampsell is an artist who also earned a Distinguished Ph.D. in history from Georgetown University. Her art media is photography, painting, and ink abstracts. She suffers from PTSD, generalized anxiety disorder, and major depressive disorder and was the victim of childhood sexual abuse. She uses art both as a coping mechanism and as a way to communicate the intense feelings of her mental illness. Dr. Sampsell hopes that her art will help destigmatize mental illness as a category of alterity. She publishes her artwork on Instagram @ksampsell_art.
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