Fractured & Felt: The Art of Mental Illness by Raven Mkhatshwa

Depression—Harvin

harvinsavio2004 — 2025-05-20 17:20:44 UTC

This gallery explores depression through four emotional themes: sadness, hopelessness, exhaustion, and the hidden pain we carry behind smiles. Each piece represents a part of the quiet struggle many live through daily.

Title: Melancholy

harvinsavio2004 — 2025-05-20 17:20:47 UTC

Artist: Edvard Munch

Date: 1894

Medium: Oil on canvas

by harvin

Title: No. 14

harvinsavio2004 — 2025-05-20 17:20:49 UTC

Artist: Mark Rothko

Date: 1960

Medium: Oil on canvas

by harvin

Title: The Desperate Man

harvinsavio2004 — 2025-05-20 17:20:52 UTC

Artist: Gustave Courbet

Date: 1845

Medium: Oil on canvas

by harvin

Title: The Sick Child

harvinsavio2004 — 2025-05-20 17:20:54 UTC

Artist: Edvard Munch

Date: 1907

Medium: Oil on canvas

by harvin

Title: Curing anxiety with art

w215700143 — 2025-05-21 02:24:23 UTC

This artwork reflect all those eyes that you think they are looking at you because your Anxiety can cause to see things response to stress, uncertainty, or perceived danger. It can manifest in many ways, physically, emotionally, and mentally.

Artist: Sarah Adams

Date: November 29, 2024

Medium: water color and pencil

by: Julissa

Title: Exercise anxiety through art

w215700143 — 2025-05-21 02:44:42 UTC

This artwork is the same man in three different emotions that he is feeling when the anxiety hits his brain. Your mind would imagine bad things of a situation and it doesn't let you concentrate on what you are doing. You talk to your self, have thoughts of your capability or forget to remember what you were doing.

Artist: Asaf Hanuka

Date: 7/2024

Medium: Drawing

by: Julissa

Title: Anxiety Canvas

w215700143 — 2025-05-21 02:58:12 UTC

This woman has her head down and has a lot of stress and anxiety, that she feels it through her whole body. Having anxiety can cause several symptoms in the human body. For example restlessness, fatigue , trouble concentrating, irritability, muscle tension, sleep disturbances and racing thoughts.

Artist: Victoria Olt

Date: 8/2024

Medium: Printed Ink canvas

By: Julissa

Title: Your mind

w215700143 — 2025-05-21 03:16:56 UTC

As an adult having everything in life is not easy to handle. This drawing represents a person having a lot of responsibilities and it can cause Anxiety. Anxiety is a natural response to stress, but when it becomes overwhelming or persistent, it can interfere with daily life. It can manifest as excessive worry, and even physical symptoms like rapid heartbeat.

Artist: Itzsomada on Davian

Date: 11-9-2020

Medium: Micron Pens (Graphic 1, Brush)

by: Julissa

Trauma at it’s Finest

riaah22 — 2025-05-21 23:19:45 UTC

Artwork symbolizing and dealing with mental health, often employs powerful and visual metaphors. It uses symbolism to express the complex and often invisible struggles associated with experiences. Here is my take on “TRAUMA”. ~Raven

The Start

riaah22 — 2025-05-21 23:36:05 UTC

This is the perfect visual representation showing the foundation of most people’s trauma. Our inner child crying out for help. Whatever monsters nightmares Demons, we dealt with as kids the memories we put away in a box. After locking the box, we threw away the key and push that box to the furthest and deepest part of our minds. So now we have all this pain, anger, and hate. A need more of longing for, that none of us have dealt with. It starts to affect us as adults because of problems that we just pushed to the side or swept under the rug. Your inner child is calling out to you for help. ~Raven

Alone Adult

riaah22 — 2025-05-21 23:40:48 UTC

If i had to imagine facing trauma alone, this is one way I would see it. The pain of being alone battling your demons, or the pain and realization of being one big mess going at it alone. No way to tell one experience from another. This experience of trauma is scary no matter the age. For some it becomes too much. Life becomes less and less worth living until you snap. ~Raven

Shared

riaah22 — 2025-05-22 00:00:41 UTC

We often experience traumatic events with someone. Either he or she, friend or family. Mostly our Partners either way we don't always go through it alone. Well those who are lucky enough to have someone in their corner. (I wish lol) “For better or worse”, ‘Ride or die”, right? Take each other's pain, share the load and heal together. ~Raven

Human

riaah22 — 2025-05-22 00:15:50 UTC

We all have our own experiences when dealing with trauma. Being silenced, abused, rejected, disrespected and so much more. We find ourselves hiding or spazzing out. Crying full of rage, self hate. We then begin to traumatize ourselves with self harm. Cutting or bruising your body mentally emotionally spiritually tearing ourselves down. All because we have unresolved trauma. Hell we are only human right. ~Raven

Fear of abandonment

w216068863 — 2025-05-22 14:08:44 UTC

This artwork shows how painful it feels to be afraid of being left by someone. The person in the picture looks broken and confused. The colors and symbols around them show how intense and messy these feelings can be. By David Odidi

Unstable self image

w216068863 — 2025-05-22 14:10:00 UTC

This painting shows a person with different faces, each showing a different feeling. It helps show how hard it is to feel sure about who you are when you have BPD. The mixed-up faces show the confusion inside. By David Odidi

Emotional intensity

w216068863 — 2025-05-22 14:11:50 UTC

This painting shows someone feeling a lot of strong emotions all at once. The bright colors and wild paint strokes help us understand how overwhelming emotions can feel for people with BPD. By David Odidi

Emotional instability

w216068863 — 2025-05-22 14:13:54 UTC

This artwork shows a person surrounded by different versions of themselves. Each version shows a different emotion. It shows how people with BPD can feel like they’re always changing and struggling to stay balanced inside.

By David Odidi

Anxiety

w215700143 — 2025-05-22 23:28:42 UTC

This artwork gallery's are based on anxiety that can cause mental illness. Anxiety can cause all kinds of emotions, for example excessive worry, and restlessness and be, unhappy. It can even cause also cause digestive issues . Anxiety can lead you to get professional help, with help you manage your life better. Anxiety is a natural response to stress, it can become overwhelming or persistent and it can interfere with daily life.

by: Julissa

Narcissus

DarinDeangelo — 2025-05-23 05:49:32 UTC

Through oil and color, Caravaggio retells the story of a cautionary tale about narcissism: Narcissus' intense gaze, made notable by dramatic light, and his flawless balance with his reflection appearing in the dark still water gives the viewer a sense of how isolating self-obsession can be for individuals who live with narcissistic personality disorder.

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)- Antonia

antoniacooper11 — 2025-05-23 16:05:30 UTC

These four artworks explore the complex and often invisible effects of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Each piece conveys the intense emotional struggle, fragmented memories, and overwhelming anxiety that characterize PTSD. Through vivid imagery and expressive symbolism, the artists express the lasting impact of trauma on the mind and body, offering viewers a window into the experience of those who live with this condition.

Title: "The Twisted Rose and other lives"

antoniacooper11 — 2025-05-23 16:15:21 UTC

“Twisted Rose and Other Lives” is a series of paintings by Andy Farr that visualizes personal stories of trauma and PTSD. The title piece, inspired by a survivor’s metaphor of a scarred but growing rose, symbolizes the enduring impact of trauma and the possibility of healing.

Title: “Guernica”

antoniacooper11 — 2025-05-23 16:21:57 UTC

A haunting, grayscale mural depicting the chaos, anguish, and devastation of civilians during the bombing of the Spanish town of Guernica in the Spanish Civil War. Its fragmented, distorted figures and anguished expressions powerfully symbolize the psychological trauma and lasting emotional scars of war, resonating as an early artistic representation of what we now recognize as PTSD.

Title: "War Series: Beachhead"

antoniacooper11 — 2025-05-23 16:29:50 UTC

Jacob Lawrence’s War Series: Beachhead portrays the chaos and trauma of combat through abstracted, fragmented figures and harsh, clashing colors, capturing the disorienting violence of war. The painting’s fractured composition and unsettling tone convey the lingering mental scars and emotional disarray experienced by soldiers.

Title: “My Bed”

antoniacooper11 — 2025-05-23 16:35:57 UTC

Tracey Emin’s "My Bed," is an unmade bed surrounded by personal debris like empty bottles, cigarettes, and stained sheets, offering a raw, intimate portrait of the artist’s psychological turmoil. The work powerfully represents the visual aftermath of trauma and mental distress, capturing the invisible weight of emotional suffering in physical space.

Madonna

DarinDeangelo — 2025-05-23 23:06:39 UTC

Scandinavian artist, Edvard Munch, took an risky approach to his depiction of the Madonna, shown here in dark isolation and unabashed eroticism and vanity—a stark deviation from versions in which she is normally seen in celestial immaculate light, and gracefully embodying prudence. Narcissistic personality traits are often associated with the dark night of the soul, once the mentally inflicted individual has stepped away from the spotlight. Those moments are viscerally gnawing on one's identity. These traits can send a person into exile from the inherent truth of who they are. Munch's Madonna seems to give homage to the Biblical Adam's first wife, Lilith, who was banished from the Garden of Eden and has been given a reputation of being a vain woman who embodies darkness.

By Darin Deangelo

Narcissistic Personality Disorder

DarinDeangelo — 2025-05-23 23:14:15 UTC

This gallery invites viewers into the isolated mental cage of narcissistic personality traits and the impact on a person's self-esteem and their image. The primary symptom of narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) is an inflated sense of self-importance through the excessive need for admiration, lack of deep concern for others, a sense of entitlement, and prone to demonstrating manipulative behaviors. While these are the negative traits of NPD, viewers of this gallery will gain an empathetic understanding that this disorder, like most mental health disorders, can be managed through self-awareness and therapy, cultivating a safe presence in a complexed world.

Centers

DarinDeangelo — 2025-05-23 23:36:25 UTC

In this visual performance, Acconci is pointing his finger at the center of the camera, controlling the viewers gaze as their attention is fixated on him as he is obsessively watching himself. This 50+ year old work is demonstrative of the ways in which technological innovations have made an impact on the collective consciousness of mankind today. Our readily accessible cameras and social media platforms have contributed significantly to the ubiquitous damage done to the sense of self. We've become isolated creatures in emotional pain, trapped in lensed box. We are collective modern iterations of Narcissus.

By Darin Deangelo

A Little Taste Outside of Love

DarinDeangelo — 2025-05-24 00:04:52 UTC

Mickalene Thomas subversively reclaims the image of beauty through Black womanhood. Similar to the way Munch portrayed his vainglorious version of Madonna, Thomas centers a nude Black woman in the manner of what viewers would expect from Western art in which a euro-centric archetypal woman is depicted lounging in comfortably in her bourgeois home. Thomas' subject is shown to be safe and well, and comfortable within her complicated relationship with vanity.

By Darin Deangelo

The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters

w215700065 — 2025-05-24 02:56:41 UTC

This artwork depicts, a man sleeping with creatures swarming him. It represents how something as a restful as sleep is not enough to escape the feelings of being watched and the fear that comes along with that.

- Eboseremen Ewah

The Intrigue

w215700065 — 2025-05-24 03:19:41 UTC

This painting represents paranoia by showing the center figure’s weary body language as they are trapped between grotesque masked figures. It shows that they are uncomfortable not knowing if they are in danger. They are debating if it’s all in their head which is why they haven’t left the situation.

- Eboseremen Ewah

The Eye, Like a Strange Balloon, Mounts Toward Infinity

w215700065 — 2025-05-24 03:45:28 UTC

This artwork represents paranoia by showing an eye in the sky that represents that someone is always watching you. As the people below are living their daily lives, there is someone, maybe God, who is watching them. That thought may invoke fear into some people, a feeling of paranoia, but for others, it may be comforting to know that they are not always alone.

-Eboseremen Ewah

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

w215700065 — 2025-05-24 04:05:40 UTC

This artwork represents paranoia as it depicts the four horsemen of the Apocalypse, which is a biblical pre-factor for the end times. The people being trampled over with the horses are the believers who are fearing that the apocalypse is coming because they’re seeing the signs. They may feel scared or anxious that they may lose everything they know along with all the not-so-nice events that come along with the end of the world. This represents paranoia because the four Horsemen aren’t physically there, but people are already scared for the end of the world which hasn’t happened yet.

-Eboseremen Ewah

Paranoia

w215700065 — 2025-05-24 04:08:13 UTC

This gallery invite its viewers to understand the fear and anxiety a person who has paranoia may feel. They are anxious that people are watching them. They are fearful of what they do not know and what is to come. Explore the artworks and their different representations of paranoia.

-Eboseremen Ewah

Borderline Personality disorder

w216068863 — 2025-05-29 01:11:25 UTC

Borderline personality disorder is a mental illness that affects how a person feels, thinks and acts. People with BPD often have strong emotions that change quickly. They may feel scared of being left alone, not knowing who they really are, or have a hard time keeping relationships . The artworks displayed hello show what it feels like to live with BPD