“To confront a person with his shadow is to show him his own light. Once one has experienced a few times what it is like to stand judgingly between the opposites, one begins to understand what is meant by the self. Anyone who perceives his shadow and his light simultaneously sees himself from two sides and thus gets in the middle.”

                                                – Carl Jung, Founder of analytical psychology

My images present a landscape of psychological states experienced in my journey through life grasping for happiness. I practice mindfulness in an attempt to attain some control over my quality of life. I feel at war with the ‘other’ part of myself, a shadowy fragment of the person I am, whose pessimistic routine restrains me from fully experiencing joy. In this work I meditate on who I am and what I want my life to be, this determination driven by a rooted obsession with mortality. I have realized that I am both the creator and destroyer of my destiny, and it is easier to destroy the light inside oneself than to defeat the darkness that lives all around. But the easy road reaps little reward, and all of the walls I build to keep pain away only forge an emptiness in its place. Over time I created a habit of retreating into the darkness and finding comfort in my isolation, but after some time realized that I was stuck and there was no thriving there.

I invite the viewer to interact with the internal world of existential and psychological crisis. Follow the ups and downs of my attempts to form a healthier state of mind and fight back negative predispositions. At the end of the journey through my mind I take what I learn and make the final push ahead, away from the problems initially created in resistance. It is time for my life to move forward and be liberated and the only way is through. No more hiding in the dark.