The Unconsious LinesBy Andrea Drenik
Art is a powerful gateway into the mind of the artist. We get to witness opinions, thoughts, and beliefs through the work they create. I work with mindfulness exercises by creating detailed patterns observing my unconscious thoughts while my hand moves across the pages. The paintings are organized with color, shape, and line expressing different emotions. This work becomes meditative practice for myself as I’m working on sorting out my feelings into a physical form.

These pieces force me to stay present in the moment and pull out feelings that I’ve been bottling up. Not much is planned throughout the creating process other than a word and a background. Creating patterns have helped me make my emotions known to me and I could take apart repeating patterns and what they could mean. A lot of pieces have parallels with each other that you could start putting a codex together. Viewers are free to draw their own conclusions with the paintings I’ve made as I’m only one point of view out of many who may see it in the future.


 
Self Portrait

Materials
Acrylic paint on canvas
24”x12”
The depiction of myself through shapes and the lack of color
The orignal design is just the center with the phases of the moon because I have it tattooed on my back around a scare that has been a part of been almost as long as I’ve been born. I called it my birthmark sense I was very young and with the tattoo I wanted to memoralize the life changes I’ve been through to get to the place I am today.
Unlike my other pieces ths design has no color since the canvas prepresents my skin. In many ways I do view my body at it’s own canvas and I look forward to continues getting more art done on my body.
HomeMaterials
Marker on paper
11”x8.5”



Home is filled with a lot of familarity. The colors are bright and the backyard if green during the winter and spring. However home has been a place of pain and dissociation. The middle of the page caused me a lot of dissociation, but as your eye moves away from the center shapes and patterns are not straining your eyes.
Something that is very common among my work is that every piece has a center peice. The center is what I refer to as, “my core” or soul. Every line and mark may not be intentional but everything comes togther to make the sightless be seen. This piece is the door that openes up to my minds eye.
PanicMaterials
Water color, and acrylic on multi-media paper 
11”x14”

Panic is something I feel the most every morning and dusk. Everyday is a new day filled with new anxities and new tasks to do and every evening I saty up late not wanting the next day to start. I’m always on high alter and sometimes a pen hitting the floor is all I need to panic. Often I have a freeze responce so I might be staying at my homework for hours as if it was a threat. It’s some of the most difficult tasks to break free from and often like a deer in head lights I flee from the issue at hand and disappear.
Greif

Materials
Water color, and acrylic on multi-media paper
11”x14” Greif often takes us by surprise and it doesn’t matter if you prepare for it it hits you hard in the chest. This piece is dedicated to my sisters cat Jassmine who passed away sortly after he turned 18 years old. Our whole family was effected by her loss as she touched all of our hearts. The center peice is the stripe pattern on her forehead and everything about this piece was just letting my emotions flow.
In some of my work the emotions are things I onced felt and it took some time to reflect on them to pull them out. I’m in survivel mode a lot so emotions are an afterthought until I hit a breaking point when they spill out. The Death of a pet is something the brought back a lot of heavy feelings I was negelting and it had took me off course for several weeks before things could get back to “normal.”
TraumaMaterials
Acrylic on multi-media paper
22”x12”

This is a one of it’s kind amoungst the rest in this portfolio. It is said that trauma can be stored in many different places of the body and this torso showcases the lack of limbs and a head because I have removed areas of my body where my trauma is stored. What if left are areas that aren’t demonized by my mind as trauma holders. For everyone is different and some can identify why these areas of the body trigger trauma responses, buy for me I can’t explain to you in detail why I attack my limbs.
When in dark episodes arise I feel deeply uncomfortable with my arms and legs and I often curl up into a ball to try and remove the pain. I don’t have a history that would explain why I experience this, but I can only theroize. I often draw myself without a head because a lot of my issues come from there. In other pieces I made in the past the most common theme was mutilation to my limbs and I altered my appearnce into a diifereny entity. I have made an ego for myself for my darker thoughts and she is a seprate being to me, so when I’m having a traume response I think of her hurting me and not myself. It is a way I learned to cope through my problems when I had energy to give.
Fustration
Materials
Marker and acrylic on multi-media paper 
11”x14”

 This feelig is very debilitating. Most of my emotions target areas of my body and when I’m feeling frustrated I feel like my head is hiting a brick wall. I feel it right in the front of mt forehead, and I often lightly hit that area when I’m struggling to get past the wall in front of me. The skull appreance was not intentional and I just went with the flow. Even when creating this piece I was frustrated  because there was a lot of trial and error. I’ve been working all these pieces for about a year and ironicly this piece gave me a lot of trouble. When expriencing moments like this I often have to step back, but the feeling doesn’t go away that easily. I can’t really relax or enjoy a break because of this stuckness still at my forefront. It’s becomes a planning process to make sure I have things ready for me to do so I’m not constantly searching for something to distract/take my mind off of feeling irritated. However it isn’t always easy and take hours if not the next day to get back on track.
Anger and Tears
Materials
Water color, and acrylic on multi-media paper
11”x14”Pure anger is something I don’t experience often and I fine with those arrangments. I get mad but they come and go and don’t effect my life long term, but when I am angry, tears fall down my face. I once told someone that. “ I rather feel depressed and sad rather than feel anger.” Anger has both negative and positive connections. Positively it can show they you deepl care about something such as the earth, war, and justice. If we aren’t angered by them then change won’t happen, but here I have witnessed anger cause problems when they aren’t centered towards selfless actions.
People being angry has driven me to tears when they are mad at me especially when things are out of my control, or it was an inocent mistake. Like the uncounsious mind I don’y have control over the feelings they bring out of me. For many years I couldn’t explain why my feelings didn’t make sense or why, despite my accomidations, I was still struggling in scool. It’s because I was undiagnose with autism for 21 years, which made relief that I had answers, but after I was angry. So many years of suffering and I could have been helped sooner before I graduated highschool. 
I spent many nights being angry and it made me scared that I might hurt someone I care about. I don’t have a lot of friends and I cherish the ones I do have. I couldn’t bare it if I was holding gurdges against them. So normally if I am upset it will last the day, but by the next I’m free from the chains that is anger. Working through the mindless excersies help me regulate those feelings so I can’t hurt anyone and protecting them from outbusrts I may have if I was thrown over the edge.
Overwhelming Materials
Water color, and acrylic on multi-media paper
11”x14”
I’m no stranger to being overwhelmed as most people are. Nearly every waking moment I’m overcome by the feeling of being overwhelmed. It takes up my vision so it is hard to enjoy downtime when I have constant reminders of why I’m overwhemed. Often bright lights, loud noises and being in a crowded places sky rocket how overwhemled I’ll feel. I often feel as if I can’t escape which turns a shut off switch in me. I’ll become numb, fatigued and unable to think properly to acheivee goals I set up for myself for the day.
Everything constantly move an if you can’t stay caught up then you’ll be left behind to drown in the ocean of stress. I have a hard time confronting this peice because of the amount of things going on throughout the paper. It’s organized yet choatic to my eyes and I tend to look towars the edges than at the core.
HopeMaterials
Ink and marker on multi-media paper
11”x14”

This piece is the light at the end of the jounry. Like the moon it changes nearly everyday and sometimes its surrounded by the dark, but it always finds it’s way back. Dealing with emotions they come in waves and big waves don’t alway last forever. It’s a little reminder that what I may be going through is only tempory and that things will get better on the otherside of the storm. Light will find a way in the dark and withought the dark times we won’t have the good times to fight for.
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