Senior Year

During my senior year of college, I wanted to create a series of self-portraits that would capture the invisible reality of my chronic pain and autoimmune disease. These conditions, which made my own body feel like a foreign, horrifying place, demanded a form of expression that I could not find in the world around me. I turned to body horror aesthetics, not as a means of storytelling, but as a reflection of my struggle, a visceral translation of the pain and sickness that engulfed me. Through the lens of these horror themes, I aimed to transform my medical experiences into fine art that did not shy away from discomfort. In a world where chronic illness and autoimmune diseases are often dismissed as too gross, too uncomfortable, or too private to discuss, I believed it was essential to turn those very elements into something beautiful, something that would spark conversation and invite understanding.

 

Living with these ailments, I found that my body no longer felt like mine. It was a place of constant betrayal, where the skin I inhabited could no longer be trusted. It became a foreign landscape, constantly at war with itself. This project was my attempt to bring that inner turmoil to the surface. Through heavy editing and vibrant, almost unnatural colors, I wanted to transform my pain into art that was impossible to ignore. I didn’t want to show a sanitized, polite version of illness; I wanted to expose the raw, unflinching reality of what pain truly felt like, rather than what it looked like from the outside. The grotesque, the broken, the vulnerable were the very things I sought to present as powerful and worthy of attention.

 

This series was not just about chronic illness; it was about giving voice to the struggles that often go unseen, especially when it comes to women’s health. For so long, women’s experiences with illness, particularly the kind that is invisible or difficult to define, have been dismissed, ignored, or misunderstood. Doctors have often been unhelpful, and societal expectations have left little room for honest discussions about the difficulties women face when their bodies fail them. In sharing my own journey, I hoped to open up a conversation about what it means to live with chronic illness, especially for women whose struggles are often minimized or overlooked. I wanted to make people uncomfortable enough to engage, to show them what illness truly feels like, and to prove that beauty can be found even in the most grotesque parts of ourselves.

 

For me, this work was not just a personal catharsis; it was a way to share my health journey with others. As I navigated a path filled with doctor visits, tests, and treatments, I lost friends, missed family gatherings, and had to make countless difficult lifestyle changes. But through this pain, I found solidarity with others who were going through similar battles. This project became a way to connect, to let others know they were not alone. Women in particular are often taught to suffer in silence, to endure in the face of medical and societal misunderstanding. My hope was that by sharing my own vulnerability, others would feel safe enough to share theirs too.

 

Aesthetically, I drew inspiration from body horror, a genre that has gained more mainstream recognition in recent years. I saw it as a powerful metaphor for the lengths people go to in order to feel normal, to feel comfortable in their own skin. This was a feeling I understood deeply. The characters in these horror films were often desperate, willing to endure extreme measures to regain a sense of self, to reclaim their bodies from something that had betrayed them. In many ways, this mirrored my own desire to feel at peace in my body again, despite the constant chaos.

 

But I didn’t want to rely solely on the darkness of body horror. I also wanted to incorporate elements of traditional femininity: flowers, bright colors, sparkles, juxtaposing these with the more grotesque elements to create a striking contrast. I wanted to blend horror with beauty, discomfort with allure, to show that both could coexist in the same space.

 

To understand this project fully, I felt it was important to be upfront about my own health struggles. How could I ask others to engage in a conversation without sharing my own journey first? It all began with my Hashimoto’s diagnosis, an autoimmune disease that set off a cascade of health issues. Extreme food allergies followed: gluten, hazelnut, beef, dairy, eggs, soy, and various fruits and vegetables. My skin was perpetually inflamed and broken out; I would have gladly crawled out of my own skin if I could. I underwent allergy shots twice a week and dealt with severe mold exposure from my dorm experience. Anemia and abnormally large blood cells made things even more complicated, while my prescription glasses were constantly at odds with my worsening vision. I struggled with Patella alta and lateral patellar tilt, caused by Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, which left my knee regularly dislocated due to hypermobile joints. I was also in the midst of finding out whether I needed knee reconstruction surgery. (I did.) 

 

To manage all of this, I was on an overwhelming number of supplements and prescriptions, which only added to the chaos in my life. My weight fluctuated so dramatically that many people, including my closest friends, accused me of having an eating disorder, which strained my relationships. I was constantly caught between health appointments, schoolwork, and a job, never able to escape the cycle of medical management. It was exhausting, and it made me question everything, even my stance on religion and superstition. 

 

Through all of this, I felt isolated, incapable, like a sickly Victorian child who needed to retreat to the sea to recover. But in that isolation, I found my art. It became a way to reclaim my body, to externalize the pain I felt inside. This project, this series of self-portraits, was my way of making visible the suffering that had been invisible for so long. It was my way of insisting that chronic illness be part of the conversation—not sanitized, not hidden, but raw, real, and undeniably present.

 

I hoped that through my vulnerability, others would feel safe enough to share their own health journeys, and that this series would spark a broader conversation about the importance of understanding women’s health and the complexities of what lies beneath the surface. This project was about more than just making art. It was about breaking down the silence, challenging discomfort, and reminding everyone that even the most grotesque and broken parts of us are worthy of being seen, understood, and embraced.