18-year-old Kate Fenner was diagnosed with schizophrenia, a severe, long-term mental condition at the age of seventeen. Learning to cope with the disorder’s symptoms, Kate realized she could turn to her art to help her deal with the hallucinations that come with schizophrenia.
The hallucinations manifest in various forms, sometimes she hears voices and random noises, for instance, and she often sees bugs and faces. This becomes the inspiration for, and the subject of, her schizophrenia drawings.
In sharing her art and mental health experience, Fenner hopes that it will help to lift the stigma around mental illness and the negative way in which the media portrays it.
In an interview with Metro News, Kate Fenner the importance of her work and the impact of sharing with a lot of people “I understand the risks of being public about hallucinating bugs and voices, but I’m willing to take those risks in an attempt to normalize mental illness (by making it acceptable to talk about and inspiring people to seek help if they need it) and to educate people.”
