Life is Pink
By Kayla Wood
I am an artist from a small town in Cambridgeshire. My practice mostly consists of portraiture, experimenting with different medias, which tends to have a darker undertone as I try to reflect on the real world and it’s dark sides. Too many people ignore real issues that occur because they want to live comfortably so I decided to create art that makes the comfortable, less uncomfortable.
Life is Pink is a project I created to show everyday struggles from someone who suffers with mental illness. This is reflective from the journal that I created in response to the project and submitted a daily log until the journal became full. By doing this, I was never certain of the outcome. It was just a pure and true journey through my daily life and I did not want to hold back when it came to expressing sensitive content and topics.
I want people to realise that these were never just words, merely thoughts; but thoughts are often a lot more damaging than what we say out loud. Someones well-being cannot be judged from the outside, sometimes you have to take a walk in someone else’s shoes to realise how much others are struggling. With this in mind, I wanted to make this project as uninhibited and personal as possible.
Usually the themes I work with are, unfortunately, things that many people have to experience, relate to and sometimes seriously effect them everyday.
Whether people relate or not, my goal is provoke a reaction and make people stop, think and sometimes reflect.
“Frequently, I am asked why I called the project ‘Life is Pink’ and there is a very simple reason behind it. It is meant to represent me. The people closest to me know me for my love for the colour pink. I surround myself with it and to be honest, I believe it’s a big part of my life and how people see me. Whether times are good or bad, people always see pink. That’s me. I am pink. My life is pink.”
Words from our Editors Michael & Emily
We were kindly invited to the private viewing at the Cambridge Regional College in May 2022. Throughout the evening we continued to be amazed by the creativity, themes, projects and works that the students from across the year groups had created. One in particular was really eye-catching, not just by the bold pink wall, but the powerful journal that was on display that caught both our attentions. This PV was also taking place during the week of our own exhibition in Norwich that was exploring well-being through art and mental health.
Kayla’s work explores a very personal reflection to the same theme, bravely opening up about her own experiences. We were lucky enough to spend some time with Kayla during the evening to discuss her works and the journey to this point and were blown away. huge congratulations to Kayla and all the graduates from CRC. We hope you enjoyed this sensitive artwork as much as we did. You can see more of Kayla’s work via her IG below:
@_nightmarishh_