As Needed explores the emotional imbalances caused by mood disorders, in conversation with the prescribed and self-medicating drugs that people take to alleviate the symptoms. The exhibition illuminates the subjectivity of treating mental health, as well as investigates our understanding of what it means to be medicated, as well as to self-medicate, in an era when drugs are more readily available than ever before. It questions how we treat our bodies and how that affects our mental habits. As Needed is a series of grided abstracted photographic works taken of dissolving substances, using photography and color theory as languages for interpreting mental states. The series represents my own daily battle with mental illness: some days go by like a bright blur. Others are long, muted. But once in a while, a bubble of optimism ignites my world and everything glows, shimmers, and fills me with light.
