Hounding for Answers: Emma Barrison’s Investigation of the Mental Health Evaluation
Art does not exist in a vacuum, rather, it is inspired by an individual’s perception and interaction with their experiences. Since the age of eight, mental health questionnaires have attempted to enumerate Emma Barrison’s understanding of the world around her. The regulated monotony of these questions has remained constant throughout her life:
Designed to confine two weeks' worth of experiences into a terse diagnosis, these evaluations often fall short. As Barrison voices, “I never remember the past two weeks, so I answer based on how I feel at the moment. I doubt everything I have experienced when I choose my answers… Am I truly feeling this way, or am I making [it] up?” No matter how often the evaluation is completed, a sense of discomfort accompanies the unwavering professional tone of the checked and unchecked boxes. The forms evoke a feeling of insincerity in the responder. Barrison compares this to “the obligatory response of ‘good!’ or ‘great’ to a passing question of ‘how are you?’” Answers to these questions are hardly ever an accurate reflection, more so provisional responses depending on how one feels in that exact moment.
Hounding for Answers
Medium: paint pens
Barrison’s recent work, “Hounding for Answers”, represents her experience filling out these mental health evaluations. The encounter between the figures and the dogs parallel filling out the evaluations and struggling to represent herself authentically. Although her drawings are up to the viewer’s interpretation, Barrison sees the dogs as the questions the forms “hound” for, while the colored shapes represent her different experiences in therapy and the various paths she has taken while answering the questionnaire.
In this work, Barrison draws on themes from her Art Theory of the 1960-1990s class. She is inspired by the conceptualism, Neo-Dada, and second-wave feminism of this era, specifically citing the following artists:
Yayoi Kusami, a Japanese artist known for her large scale sculptures and pop-art polka dot compositions.
Helena Almeida, second-wave feminist artist known for themes of the interaction between body and canvas.
Lygia Pape, a Latin American conceptual artist. Known for using geometric art to engage with ethical and political motifs.
Emma Barrison is currently a Junior majoring in Art with a minor in Museum Studies. Her other works include Skate 19 (left) and Self Portrait of an Alternative Self Image (right).
