Soft washes and darker currents drift across the surface like a tide in transition, calm above, but pulling beneath. Inspired by the ocean, the piece reflects how mental health can feel, moments of stillness interrupted by deeper, unseen forces. Like an undertow, emotions can quietly gather strength below the surface, shaping what we feel before we fully understand it.

I built this piece in layers, like a landscape shaped by time and pressure. Greys settle like sediment, forming a worn, shifting ground that feels both natural and unsettled.

Sharp red lines cut across the surface; like roots, veins, or cracks in drying earth. They echo the strain we place on the environment, but also the sudden intrusions of thought that disrupt inner balance. The darker forms gather like storm clouds or spills, dense and hard to navigate, while lighter areas offer brief moments of release.

In this work, I see no clear boundary between the external and the internal. The same forces that fracture the land can fracture the mind. Both are shaped by pressure, both carry the marks of disruption, and both are constantly trying to find a way to settle again.

I built this piece through tearing, layering, and resisting the urge to make it whole again. The surface carries fragments, raw edges, smudged blacks, and washed-out whites; that feel like parts of; me pulled in different directions. There’s a tension here, a sense of being suspended between collapse and control.

The red pushes through like something I can’t fully contain; emotion, pressure, a signal of distress or defiance. It cuts across the quieter tones, refusing to be ignored. I didn’t place it carefully; I let it emerge, the way difficult feelings do; suddenly and without permission.

The darker forms gather and press inward, creating weight, while the lighter areas try to open space, to breathe. I see this as a reflection of my own mental landscape: moments of overwhelm colliding with the need for stillness. Nothing sits comfortably, but everything belongs.

This work isn’t about resolution. It’s about acknowledging the fracture, and what it feels like to exist inside it

This piece reflects the shift in my internal world after losing my sight; like a landscape changed by forces beyond its control. The surface feels eroded and unsettled, as if the familiar has been stripped back and reshaped into something harder to recognise.

The darker forms move like gathering weather, carrying uncertainty and weight, while the lighter areas feel like fragile spaces where I try to find clarity. Nothing is fixed. Edges blur, directions dissolve, and I’m left navigating something that no longer follows the rules I once relied on.

Since becoming visually impaired, my mental health has felt like this; an environment in constant adjustment. There is loss, frustration, and disorientation, but also moments where things soften, where I begin to understand this new terrain.

I didn’t try to control the marks. I let them shift and settle, the way I’ve had to learn to move through this experience; adapting, recalibrating, and finding a way forward within a landscape that has been permanently altered.