Madison Thompson
Artist Statement:
This body of work addresses the damage and destructiveness that emotional abuse has on someone by stepping into the mind of a victim of abuse. The imagery in this show is a form of visual evidence around the marks left behind from the abuse. These images are created to give a voice to victims. They are designed to help the victims have something to point to as an aid in their journey of realizing they are not alone. Often people, who have been trapped in abusive situations, feel as if they are the only one that have gone through these experiences, causing them to devalue their reality.
When it comes to emotional abuse, it can be one of the hardest things to process and heal from. Dealing with and processing abuse, in general, is an incredibly difficult thing to go through but as a victim of emotional abuse it can be even harder to navigate. When someone goes through physical abuse, there are bruises and scars, there are physical identifiers on the body that can be pointed to as evidence. However, when we are going through emotional abuse those bruises and scars are not something tangible that can be shown as proof. Victims of emotional abuse have to wrestle with their thoughts and emotions and often those are where the bruises and scars lie. The imagery of this show was designed to encapsulate those thoughts and emotions. This body of work takes those bruises and makes them tangible, makes them visible, makes them evidence. This series shows the marks that are left from emotional abuse and gives others the opportunity to see that it is real.
