Mehreen Hashmi

‘She’ was forced to perform every day like a clown who is forced to smile besides her devastated circumstances. ‘They’ told her its fine now ‘You’ can smile. ‘She’ was hiding all the darkness beneath those smiles and pretty faces. No one listened and no one understood, so ‘she’ talked to ‘me’ .

My work is a narration of my own struggles with PTSD being an abuse survivor for my entire childhood, its a depiction of  those emotions and experiences which has been suppressed inside me under social pressure, have found an existence in my paintings. Those experiences which cannot be shared or justified through words. I  tell the story of seclusion, suppression and suffering of living with mental health struggles for myself and many others who are suffering. It’s the inner discovery of hidden self which derives me towards positive pathways. It’s a cage of my own self which never let me out. It’s not only me; it’s every other person in different prison of inner self.