2023

I Feel Your Eyes On Me Like Beetles explores the need for human connection, and delves into the complexities of feeling like an outsider. Whether it's due to being neurodivergent, queer, an expat, or simply different in some other way, this piece aims to capture the sensation of walking into a room full of strangers and feeling intensely self-conscious. It's the moment before you're accepted into the group, when everyone turns to look at you. The faces may not necessarily be unfriendly, but they are an unknown quantity, and you can sense that they're sizing you up, making judgments about who you are and who you might be.

Of course, this experience is universal to some extent, but there's something particularly visceral about the neurodivergent experience. As an autistic person the feeling of being perceived can be even more intense and excruciating, to the point of being painful at times. There’s an itchiness to it, and a bracing for the sting of rejection. You can literally feel their eyes crawling all over you like beetles.

The feeling of otherness can be incredibly isolating, and can even lead to moments of disassociation or disconnection from oneself. This only exacerbates the sense of disconnection from the people around you, making it even more difficult to feel a sense of belonging.

With this piece, I wanted to capture that sense of being perceived and judged, and in doing so shed light on the often-overlooked experiences of those who feel different or othered in some way. Eight of the elements in this nine-piece work describe that self-consciousness and sensation of eyes crawling like beetles. With the ninth element, however, - the central piece of the work - the gaze is turned back towards the viewer as both a gentle challenge, and a poignant reminder of the importance of empathy and understanding in a world that can often be harsh and unforgiving to those who do not fit into narrow societal norms.

Beetles is created from my old paint palettes - I use scrap paper, old paper plates, scraps of cardboard etc to mix the colours for my paintings so I end up with these gorgeous multicoloured fragments which I can’t bear to throw away. I’m so glad I found a way to recycle them and give them a home in this work.