(self portrait) IDENTITY

Who we know ourselves to be, depends mainly on the story we tell ourselves about who we are. For me, my twenties were full of feelings of dissociation. I searched my inner mind and explored my unknown through self-portraiture, in order to better understand myself and build a more confident story I could believe in. The ability to observe myself from the outer perspective of self-portraiture provided me a reality I could connect with. Normally a very private and reserved individual, self-portraiture also allowed me a freedom I couldn’t experience otherwise. The ability to escape the sense of entrapment within a body that didn't feel as though was my own and a mind trapped within a box I didn't want to be within. I believe my identity can be seen often more clearly through these images, than I ever understood at the time, and am still discovering today.

Motel Hoetel is a series of visual representations of individual rooms of my consciousness. A series of past, present, and future thoughts, beliefs, programs, and both true and false identities. A deep search for who and what I am and was, can be seen from the time I enter the Motel Hoetel in the bottom left, to the point I jump from the top right.

This self-portrait series in hindsight is a very accurate depiction of the struggles I lived through as an undiagnosed autistic individual, right down to the representation of suicidal attempts. Fortunatly for myself I was able to receive a diagnosis late in life and then, the ability to permanently leave the Motel Hoetel safely for good.