“No.2 Don’t look is about potential. I feel this painting every time I surface from depression and get the gulp of ‘you’re worth it’ and ‘you’re enough’. Feeling not good enough, or rejected at a level of family can make simply being yourself exceptionally difficult around anyone. While creating this I was feeling deeply about what I have personally endured. It looks at the reality that we actually shine, and very brightly - that is, when you’re turned on by whatever turns you on. Perhaps I am a superb, vivid, alive creature with all the glowing potential in the world.

It’s a shame that feeling good, and showing it, also causes you to shrink again. It causes us to pull back, be embarressed, fit in. You become smaller again; a deliberate choice in size of this piece was made to show this in one way, and that your field of connection also grows smaller. You don’t fit into the version of yourself you’ve been portraying anymore.

This piece is a reminder that the glossy, vivacious version of each of us is in there - and as you do uncover yourself, you may also scream to be covered up. What if they judge? Well, they may not speak to you, or fuck you off entirely, actually.

That is a good thing, although finding a place within yourself where this is okay is so difficult. We’re mammals driven by connection, after all. But the others like you are out there, it’s just a tinier home. ”

“No.3 I get to decide is a bold exploration of stopping others in their overstep and choosing for the self. Making the conscious decision to say no. Making a deliberate choice to trust your own mind and express that you don’t want something. It’s about listening to your own code, your own inspiration.

In the throws of my life, because I am creative, I have had others frequently tell me what I should be doing. It’s not uncommon for creatives, as it’s a fluctuating career branch that points to being poor and struggling - very untrue in itself, but not to digress. People tend to offer unsolicited advice because you’re not doing things the way they think you could be. Or they way they would. To my shame, and pleasing tendencies, I have followed plenty of this advice when I have not resonated with it, sometimes for years, trying to make some sort of living and to please others.

When I follow this path I’m actively circling the drain - mentally, so to speak. I break out of it from time to time. But I know I need that space. To create, to express the way I need to. I don’t make art because it’s just nice. I make it because I have to. Like many, I’ve held my tongue when being told what I must do because being perceived as a difficult (female) artist would be such a terrible crime.

This work was a meditative practice on perceived control, perfectionism and thinking about my responsibilities. I wanted to hone in on the sense of what I want and need in an artwork. Not for anything, not to be manipulated or controlled in any way to make money - it exists only to be itself. We need reminding of that sentiment throughout society, in my opinion. Some might say it’s not finished, but they would be absolutely wrong. Its future is still ahead, wild and undone, but it is perfect just as it is. It doesn't need to be complete to be complete.

For the record, I fucking hate being told what to do.”

- Karlee Hankin