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The idea of these sketches which I wish to explore more, is the idea of things are not what they look like in relationships like these. So the idea is I would look like a loving relationship on the outside, but as you open the imahe out. There would be flaps, so the image folds open, another image/story is told. I haven’t got far with this idea yet, and just have these very basic sketches.
Looking inwardly, I started to write down all the things which Adam said to me which were manipulative, controlling or could be considered abusive. When I started I struggled to get a couple of things down but once I had moved past 4-5 it all came out of me in waves and I ended up with 5 pages.
When doing this exercise, I had the realisation that by the end of our relationship I wasn’t myself anymore, I was just a puzzle roughly glued together of these words. I wanted to experiment with texture, typography and collage (by using a photocopier) and see if I could create anything interesting out of these words.
I wrote them quickly writing them down in ripped up pieces of paper, and then photocopied them. I then took the photocopy and laid that behind all these pieces and I just repeated. I also wanted to experiment with ripping up the photocopies and repeating.
I then experimented quickly with drawing a portrait over the top digitally.
In January 2018, I was a bit of a mess. I had been working everyday for over a month apart from Christmas day. boxing day and New years day. 2 of those days the restaurant was closed. I was working over 85 hours a week and I was using work as a distraction and an escape from the fact, I had been raped by my ex-boyfriend in my own bed, a month after we had broken up. Also my best friend wanted some space, as we had started this weird on and off relationship but he had gotten back with his ex.
I am stating all this because it sets up my emotional state when I met Adam and how vulnerable I was.
On the day I met Adam, our first date, I mentioned the fact that I experience pain during sex sometimes, due to a medical condition, and if I say stop it means stop. He asked why I was stating this. I stated that because when I said stop to my ex, he didn’t. Adam then told me he understood, he had also been raped when he was a kid. Adam was the first person to label what had happened to me as rape. It all finally clicked for me and my mental state spiralled to a place which didn’t start to recover until I had left Adam behind 6 months later.
I again am stating this because it made me feel connected, linked to Adam and that because I had something to owe him.
The first 2 months of our relationship was fine. I don’t want to say it was amazing, because it wasn’t. It was okay, fine. He was a lovely and loving guy. I felt comfortable around him most of the time, and he looked after me when I was spiralling. I liked him, but didn’t have any deep feelings, however I felt that was due to the fact I was emotionally scarred and didn’t have must trust after my ex. So I decided that he was doing everything right, so I commited to the relationship and then on things subtlely changed. He started to become manipulative. Overbearing, and controlling. But everything really started to change around the time of myself going to the police about my ex.
I had taken a couple of days off to go and see my family up North and the night I came back, I was lying in bed with Adam and it all just hit me, and I knew I needed to go to police. I told Adam that I was going to the police the next day and would he come with me. He originally said yes, the next day as I was heading there I received a text saying he could come with me. I called him, and asked why and he said it was going to affect his mental health too much, because a couple of years before he was arrested because his sister had called the police on him for assaulting her. In the end he was never charged. However it made things hard with his family, and they had only let him moved back in a couple of months before I met him when he quit drinking.
In the end, my housemate and my friend came to meet me and support me. When I returned home that night, Adam had been out with my other housemate, and been drinking. The first time I had seen him drink while we had been together. He told me he was t-total because he used to be an alcoholic.
The following week, I had my video interview with the police, and again Adam refused to come. Scott, my best friend, came with me. But because he was working late the night before, and lived a couple of hours away asked if he could sleep on my sofa. I agreed. But Adam didn’t. We had a huge falling out. He was jealous, he accused me of cheating, or that I would cheat if another man slept on my sofa. From that moment on Adam changed completely, and it was not subtle.
That was the week was the first time I was raped, and from then on the sexual assault was continuous on a daily basis. On that first time he manipulated me into comforting him instead, and any time I mentioned it, he accused me of throwing his mistake in his face, and that he had apologised, he just got caught up in the moment.
He became more and more manipulative, controlling, violent, and abusive. I was so scared, especially of what would happen if I left him, but also he manipulated me to think it was all my fault, and that none of what he was doing was happening to me. I wasn’t allowed to go home, I had to be at his, he had to know where I was at all times, and wasn’t allowed to leave without permission. He spent my money, he forced me to stay home on a day of work which ended up with me receiving disciplinary action and being fired, however which was later revoked as the day I had off was the day after my granddad died, and I asked it off as compassionate leave and they refused. I wasn’t allowed to see my friends.
One day in July, Adam told me about a job offer he was received for a job in China, even though he said he was excited about it, he didn’t want to take it because of me. However I saw this as an opportunity to get out safely. I convinced him to take the job. He hated me for it, and he got worse. However a few days later I was already moving down to Brighton. I left it until a couple of days before moving, and I would have safe places to stay for the next couple of nights. And I ended it.
He wasn’t leaving until October, and he convinced me to stay friend with him, and in sake of my own safety I felt like I needed to keep him happy. And I had an end date Halloween 2018 he would be out of the country, I only needed to keep and act on for a few months, but I had to live with the consequences. He wasn’t as controlling however recieved abuse when I didn’t see him as much as he wanted, I still had to endure the sexual assault and abuse. But after all I had been through felt like nothing, and I had gone numb, but I could see the end in sight. But then it wasn’t.
On the 31st October 2018, Adam took a flight to China. 18 hours later I receive a phone call with him in tears declaring it was a scam, and he was booked on the next flight home. He wanted me to meet him at the airport, he wanted to get back together, as the main reason I gave for breaking up with him was him leaving for China. I was in a state full of panic. I was terrified.
I met him at the airport. I sat on the Piccadilly line all the way back, and we discussed everything. I declared I didn’t want to be in a relationship with him. I declared I didn’t love him anymore (even though I never did. I always said I did to appease him.) That we didn’t have a healthy relationship and it was the best thing for both of us to go our separate ways. I told him to give me some space.
He then texted me constantly for months. I asked that I wasn’t ready to see him, and this might sound stupid, however he had this little figurine a friend of mine gave to me to find me of the good, it was the little chicken and she had kept with her everyday of a really tough job and talked to it to get herself through it. She hoped it could do the same for me. Adam used it as bait to get me to see him. But in the end, however much it meant to me it wasn’t worth him trying to convince himself back into my life.
After a few months of texting. I finally got up the courage to block him on everything on social media. But even then he tried elaborate ways of getting in tough with me and became kind of stalkerish. In the end, I was happy when I moved and he finally didn’t know where I was, and was blocked in every way possible and either he gave up or had no more means to get in touch.
When I moved in June 2019, I finally felt free of Adam.
Over the last 2 years of study, I have delved into the world of printing, and trying to discover a process which works for me in both in methodology and results. Even though I have loved the process of different printmaking techniques however I struggled to find a method which works with my style. Just before lockdown I discovered photopolymer etching, and it felt like something important and I just had this drive to do more.
But then of course I couldn’t use the workshops, therefore for the last few weeks since I have been able to have access again, I have been in there at every opportunity to start experimenting but also practising and developing my work with photopolymer etching.
The images above is the work I have been creating over the last 3 weeks.
Turkish artist Vahit Tuna, in 2019, completed an installation of 440 pairs of black high heels on a building in the Turkey’s Capital Istanbul, representing the number of women who were killed by their partner in Turkey in 2018.
This piece shows the scale of the issue. Femicide and Intimate Partner Homeside is a huge issue and is becoming even more so a crisis.
Black heels were used to represent independence and defiance. In Turkey there is a tradition of after a person passes away their shoes are hung outside their home for up to 6 months.
This installation is using shock tactics to raise awareness and emote a emotional response to inspire change.
The Charity Refuge in 2018 released this poem by Natasha Saunders. When reading top to bottom it tells the story of a whirlwind romance, however it you read it bottom to top it shows the devastating and terrifying reality of living with an abusive partner.
This poem in particular resonates with me because of my own personal experience.
In 2018, I met a guy while I was in a vunerable state after a month after being raped. I got wrapped up in the feeling of comfort of feeling like I was being looked after and cared for, but as time went on when I was more and more in the relationship, the more abusive he got, and the more trapped I felt. However because the first couple of months he was so kind and caring, and supporting me after what I thought at the time was the worst experience of my life, I was trapped in that memory and doubting what was happening to me was true. Also he was incredibly manipulative and turned everything he did back on me.
Linking my experience with this poem, I just saw the whirlwind romance, and that’s what nearly everyone else saw, and in many of ways ignored the abuse. For myself it was a coping mechanism, and I hid my experience from everyone because of shame and guilt and Adam, my abuser was this actor, who changed his face around others.
This poem inspires me to look at these two sides, what the world see and what the true reality is. Exposing the truth.