Cold Hands Everywhere is the second entry in my Dreams and Nightmares collection, an ongoing series where I use horror imagery to externalise emotions, experiences and thoughts that are sometimes difficult to communicate normally. At its core, this work is about emotional exhaustion.
The hands surrounding the figure became a representation of that feeling. They are not necessarily one person or one particular experience, but the accumulated sensation of constantly being pulled at from every direction people wanting another favour, another piece of time, another part of you. There was simply no room to breathe.
I sometimes describe that experience as being surrounded by psychic vampires. Not because somebody suddenly destroys you, but because the damage happens gradually. A little energy disappears here. A little confidence disappears there. Eventually you become so accustomed to being drained that even the fear begins to change. That is why the expression in this image is not purely one of panic.
There is fear, but there is also exhaustion, helplessness and acceptance. The horror has been happening for long enough that struggling against it has almost become routine. The eyes developed into one of the most interesting elements of the piece for me.
One is being physically interfered with, almost as though the ability to see clearly direction, ambition, judgment or even identity is being taken away. Yet another eye appears somewhere it should not exist, still trying to look toward the light. I began interpreting that as regeneration.
If one part of me is damaged, another eventually finds a way to see. That idea probably describes my relationship with this period of my life better than anything else in the image.
Eventually I realised that I could not continue living in the same way. I became more selective about the people around me, more protective of my time and far more guarded with my creative energy. In many ways, an older version of myself had to disappear so that another could take his place.
And while I am happier and considerably stronger now, I would be lying if I said I never miss parts of that person.
I miss how open it was. I miss the energy that allowed me to constantly meet people, network, help others and assume good intentions without immediately questioning what somebody wanted in return.
I don't miss the pain that came with it, but I would like some of those qualities back. Slowly, I think they are returning. That is why the light remains so important within the piece.
The darkness is still there. Some remnants of those experiences occasionally resurface, and not every part of that period has completely disappeared. But the most aggressive version of it belongs to the past. There is still a way out.
There is still something worth looking towards and perhaps that is what Dreams and Nightmares continues to become for me not simply a collection of disturbing imagery, but a place where experiences that once existed internally can be given a physical form. These works are personal, but I don't necessarily want them to belong exclusively to me.
Someone else may look at the hands and see completely different people. They may recognise the exhaustion. The feeling of constantly being needed but rarely being considered. The difficulty of knowing when generosity has become self-destruction.
Or simply the feeling of being overwhelmed for so long that it begins to feel normal. If somebody sees one of these images and thinks, I've felt like that before. Then perhaps the work has already accomplished something.
And if I could say anything to the people who once represented those hands, it probably would not be something particularly hateful.
It would simply be:
It's a shame you never really gave me a chance. We could have been much happier together.