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Jessica Butler- Anxiety as a Metaphor

Jessica Butler is a recent graduate of Photography from the University for the Creative Arts. Butler’s work primarily focuses on documentary practice. Often turning her focus on her family dynamic and relationships within it. She also finds herself focusing on the relationship that she has with her body, trying to gain understanding of her conditions

This series Anxiety as a Metaphor is an exploration of my relationship with anxiety and body. I have suffered with anxiety for many years and I have always found it difficult to describe the physical and mental effects, effecting my day-to-day life. I utilised this work as a way to explore and create visual metaphors of what anxiety can feel like, to aid understanding for not only myself, but also people who do not suffer with the condition. I step away from my usual documentary approach with this work, and approach surrealist visuals that some find strange to look at. I use the surreal images as a support of exploring the surreal feelings of anxiety. Pushing the viewer into a new space that they did not know was there. I achieved the results through researching the condition and interviewing others who have suffered with it. This then furthered the project as I gained various different perspectives of anxiety expanding it outside of my own feelings of the condition, allowing me to end with the six image series.

I made this a self-portrait piece of work as I felt that someone who suffered with the condition should be the subject of the photograph to ensure there was a strong understanding as to what the feeling felt like. I also felt that the project would be falsified had I not, as the subject may not have understood the perspective of a person who has the condition. I originally made this work into a book, in which each image would have an accompanying piece of text that would describe the feeling that was visualised in the image. I have since then removed the text as I feel that the images are iconic enough and act as a great representation alone, without it being described to the audience.


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