A psychiatric patient goes through dozens of medication boxes every year. I collect these discarded medication boxes and use a scanner to distort the designs into new images, which are expanded into paintings. The swirling moods and disorientation of medicated/unmedicated states are represented in the tonally-similar palettes and agitated stria of the scan-stretched letters.
The only intelligible phrase is 'TELL YOUR DOCTOR', a soundbite which bombards viewers of psychiatric drug advertisements. We tell our doctors about everything from side effects to our deepest emotions. A psychiatric patient’s emotionally-fraught relationship with doctors and psychiatric medications is central to my work.
I have been medicated for the mercurial moods of manic-depression for almost a decade. However, my own overwrought emotions don’t dominate the work. My undergraduate degree in psychology lends me a clinical perspective, allowing me to communicate the range of emotions that the medicated might experience.
!['Tell Your Doctor Seven (Racing Thoughts)'; Detail](https://2022.ncad.works/media/pages/graduates/lee-dias/f141d8387c-1653567714/8-detailone-1200x-q90.jpg)
'Tell Your Doctor Seven (Racing Thoughts)'; Detail
!['Tell Your Doctor Seven (Racing Thoughts)'](https://2022.ncad.works/media/pages/graduates/lee-dias/c0467c6cf3-1653567707/1-tydsevenfinal-1200x-q90.jpg)
'Tell Your Doctor Seven (Racing Thoughts)'
!['Tell Your Doctor Two (Akathisia)'](https://2022.ncad.works/media/pages/graduates/lee-dias/2e3519d85e-1653567709/4-tydtwofinal-1200x-q90.jpg)
'Tell Your Doctor Two (Akathisia)'
!['Tell Your Doctor Three (Depressive Rumination)'](https://2022.ncad.works/media/pages/graduates/lee-dias/4d3f8dbc4f-1653567711/5-tydthreefinal-1200x-q90.jpg)
'Tell Your Doctor Three (Depressive Rumination)'
!['Tell Your Doctor Five (Visual Hallucinations)'](https://2022.ncad.works/media/pages/graduates/lee-dias/e30e44c271-1653567712/6-tydfivefinal-1200x-q90.jpg)
'Tell Your Doctor Five (Visual Hallucinations)'
!['Tell Your Doctor Six (Flight of Ideas)'](https://2022.ncad.works/media/pages/graduates/lee-dias/5a94781524-1653567713/7-img-7171-1200x-q90.jpg)
'Tell Your Doctor Six (Flight of Ideas)'
!['Tell Your Doctor Two (Akathisia)'; Detail](https://2022.ncad.works/media/pages/graduates/lee-dias/1891343a50-1653567715/9-detailthree-1200x-q90.jpg)
'Tell Your Doctor Two (Akathisia)'; Detail
Research
!['Medication Box Archive'](https://2022.ncad.works/media/pages/graduates/lee-dias/dc865cc8c9-1653567708/2-contactsheet-001-copyforipadfinal-1200x-q90.jpg)
'Medication Box Archive'
!['Tell Your Doctor Scan'](https://2022.ncad.works/media/pages/graduates/lee-dias/21d5775923-1653567708/3-escitalopramleaflet-15-1200x-q90.png)
'Tell Your Doctor Scan'