Dana Kamberg is best known amongst her peers for her paintings and prints featuring her Anxious Ladies. Over the last few years, Ms. Kamberg has been the recipient of the Eyedazzler Award, the Arts and Letters Scholarship, the Moller Scholarship for her exemplary work and dedication to her craft, and featured in the Refuse des Salon show in Sedona, Arizona. Looking ahead to graduate school, she intends to continue her work outlining the internal and external impacts of various mental health disorders.

DANA KAMBERG PRESENTS: ART AND FEAR

A SELF PORTRAIT STUDY ON DEPRESSION, ANXIETY, AND HEALING

Dedicated To:

Xan Alexander Estefan Leon, and to those who are fighting or surviving depression.

My Anxious Ladies series, or Art and Fear, depict a variety of distorted self portraits which feature representations of myself as a sorrowful woman in a red bathing cap. These images are tender and raw; based off of a series of photographs I took of myself through the duration of my therapy. Derived from my frustration in the healing process of my anxiety disorder and depression, these photographs ultimately became the references for the Anxious Ladies series. Through this series, I found that not only was my work useful as a coping mechanism for my own healing, but it connected with others experiencing mental illnesses as well. The use of these stylized portraits offers a chance for the audience to place themselves as the main subject. When did they last feel the kind of anxiety demonstrated in the figures’ faces? Comparing themselves to the portraits, how do they feel in that moment? This kind of discourse is fundamental to the reception of mental illnesses.