BETHANY FELL
SENIOR ART THESIS EXHIBITION
Contact Information
Bethany Fell
Bethany Fell
West Palm Beach, FL
ARTIST STATEMENT:
The first step in processing grief is denial. My brain does this step for me. To protect me, my brain wiped away the memories of my trauma. I didn’t need to process my grief, as my brain had denied its very existence. It is a survival mechanism, avoiding the need to process the pain by pretending it didn’t exist.
After repeated sexual abuse throughout my life, my brain wiped almost all of my 22 years of memory in order to forget any traumatic events, a process called dissociative amnesia.
Yet, the act of denying these memories proved to be a double-edged sword, leaving behind concealed wounds that demanded acknowledgment. To initiate healing, I undertook the challenging endeavor of revisiting the lost years, hoping to comprehend the trauma necessitating remembrance.
Through the lens of artistic exploration and immersive performance, I seek to relive and unlock the hazy recollections of my past. The intense emotions these unprocessed memories brought to the surface forced me to confront the pain I had long suppressed unconsciously.
Through my work, I aim to take my audience on a deeply intimate and personal journey of empathy. Through peeling back layers of my past, the viewer is compelled to experience what it feels like to be lost in memory, a sea of half-remembered truths and half-forgotten lies.