Angels Lie

KJ Halliday Jnr 2023

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I never meant to become an artist. It was more that the circumstances in which I found myself meant that I had no choice. It was calling to me. That and the undiagnosed bipolar disorder were calling. I have spent the best part of two decades undiagnosed with a serious mental illness. It was art that saved me though. No matter how bad the crushing depression got, or how insane the bouts of mania, I could always count on art. No matter how many friends I lost, I could always count on creativity to fill the gaping void that mental illness tore in my life. I was able to direct the worst of symptons into art. This series has taken me a few years to release because as with everything in my life, my art is affected by my mental illness. Some of my art is driven by mania, other perhaps harder to understand aspects of my art have been based on my psychosis. Throughout the years I have felt something pulling me towards this point in time, pushing my creativity and showing me visions of outstanding beauty that I was (because of a lack of artistic skill) unable to translate. I hope that my art has improved over the years and so I welcome you to a very personal series I have (at the last minute) re-titled to “Angels Lie” because in my experience, they do. Plus it was less gloomy than the original title “I will send you my servant, the Branch”.

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