Image 1 of 1
Mental Health Clock
Mental Health Clock is a brutally honest reflection of my experience navigating the VA system — a system that often left me feeling more like a number than a human being. In the darkest moments, when I felt like I was losing my mind or drowning in the weight of invisible wounds, the answer was always the same: another pill. Another prescription. Another appointment with a doctor who barely looked me in the eye. This painting captures the dizzying cycle — the mental health industrial complex — where pain is processed, diagnosed, and medicated, all while someone else profits. It’s a clock that keeps turning, but no time is ever truly healed.
The painting is divided into four intense quadrants, each representing a psychological season in this endless loop. In the top left, wild-eyed figures scream in unison — chaos, fragmentation, the overwhelming noise inside the mind. In the top right, twin figures burn with psychic fire, exploding in anger and confusion beneath a false blue sky. Below them, a mound of money surrounds a human skull, watched over by a doctor’s cold prescription pad — a stark symbol of death and profit wrapped in the same frame. The bottom left portrays a trio of grayscale, expressionless men in suits — perhaps doctors, or pharmaceutical reps — uniform, indifferent, and eerily detached.
The color palette is hot, loud, and unrelenting: blood reds, searing oranges, toxic greens, and manic blues battle for dominance, echoing the overstimulation and emotional noise of mental distress. The style draws heavily from German Expressionism and Surrealism, with distorted faces, exaggerated features, and unsettling symmetry. Figures are rendered with raw, sketch-like strokes, enhancing the sense of urgency, anxiety, and unreality.
This is not a quiet painting. It’s meant to confront. To provoke. To speak for everyone who’s ever felt stuck in a system that treats symptoms but forgets the soul. Mental Health Clock isn’t about answers — it’s about breaking the silence.
Mental Health Clock is a brutally honest reflection of my experience navigating the VA system — a system that often left me feeling more like a number than a human being. In the darkest moments, when I felt like I was losing my mind or drowning in the weight of invisible wounds, the answer was always the same: another pill. Another prescription. Another appointment with a doctor who barely looked me in the eye. This painting captures the dizzying cycle — the mental health industrial complex — where pain is processed, diagnosed, and medicated, all while someone else profits. It’s a clock that keeps turning, but no time is ever truly healed.
The painting is divided into four intense quadrants, each representing a psychological season in this endless loop. In the top left, wild-eyed figures scream in unison — chaos, fragmentation, the overwhelming noise inside the mind. In the top right, twin figures burn with psychic fire, exploding in anger and confusion beneath a false blue sky. Below them, a mound of money surrounds a human skull, watched over by a doctor’s cold prescription pad — a stark symbol of death and profit wrapped in the same frame. The bottom left portrays a trio of grayscale, expressionless men in suits — perhaps doctors, or pharmaceutical reps — uniform, indifferent, and eerily detached.
The color palette is hot, loud, and unrelenting: blood reds, searing oranges, toxic greens, and manic blues battle for dominance, echoing the overstimulation and emotional noise of mental distress. The style draws heavily from German Expressionism and Surrealism, with distorted faces, exaggerated features, and unsettling symmetry. Figures are rendered with raw, sketch-like strokes, enhancing the sense of urgency, anxiety, and unreality.
This is not a quiet painting. It’s meant to confront. To provoke. To speak for everyone who’s ever felt stuck in a system that treats symptoms but forgets the soul. Mental Health Clock isn’t about answers — it’s about breaking the silence.