Image 1 of 1
Image 1 of 1
Image 1 of 1
Image 1 of 1
My PTSD Monster is a visual manifestation of the unseen weight I carried home from Iraq. I didn’t understand what had changed inside me, but I knew something had. My nervous system was always on high alert — touchy, volatile, like my body had stayed in the warzone even after I left. I felt like something dark was riding me, always just behind my shoulder, whispering chaos, pushing me to react like I was still in combat. This painting is my attempt to show the duality — the me that people saw and the monster that lived inside, always ready, always crouched in the dark.
In the painting, two distorted, screaming figures twist into each other, one clearly mounted on the back of the other — inseparable, fused in madness. Their hair is wild, their eyes bulging with panic, and their mouths stretched in a shared silent scream. The color palette is raw and earth-toned: flesh tones are muddied with sickly yellows and violent reds, while the background swirls with a deep, suffocating black. The pants in bruised purple and the EOD green figures along the bottom add jarring contrast and tension. The style blends expressionism and surrealism, using exaggerated, angular forms and nightmarish textures to create a chaotic, visceral emotional landscape. Every brushstroke is jagged, deliberate, and turbulent — reflecting the relentless, exhausting presence of PTSD in the body and soul.
My PTSD Monster is a visual manifestation of the unseen weight I carried home from Iraq. I didn’t understand what had changed inside me, but I knew something had. My nervous system was always on high alert — touchy, volatile, like my body had stayed in the warzone even after I left. I felt like something dark was riding me, always just behind my shoulder, whispering chaos, pushing me to react like I was still in combat. This painting is my attempt to show the duality — the me that people saw and the monster that lived inside, always ready, always crouched in the dark.
In the painting, two distorted, screaming figures twist into each other, one clearly mounted on the back of the other — inseparable, fused in madness. Their hair is wild, their eyes bulging with panic, and their mouths stretched in a shared silent scream. The color palette is raw and earth-toned: flesh tones are muddied with sickly yellows and violent reds, while the background swirls with a deep, suffocating black. The pants in bruised purple and the EOD green figures along the bottom add jarring contrast and tension. The style blends expressionism and surrealism, using exaggerated, angular forms and nightmarish textures to create a chaotic, visceral emotional landscape. Every brushstroke is jagged, deliberate, and turbulent — reflecting the relentless, exhausting presence of PTSD in the body and soul.