Looking Down the Barrel is a 22 × 30-inch black-and-white abstract ink drawing created using the same calligraphy pen-and-ink technique as The Beginning of the End. The piece centers around a single abstract eye, with a gun forming the iris and bullet casings falling from the eye like tears.
The imagery comes from a deeply difficult period in my life when I was struggling with suicidal thoughts and found myself confronting the barrel of a gun. The eye represents the experience of looking directly at something devastating, while the gun at its center becomes a symbol of the thoughts and emotions I was struggling to escape.
The falling bullet casings take the place of tears, turning an internal experience into something physical and visible. I used the repetitive process of dipping the calligraphy pen into ink and building the image through layers of marks, allowing the drawing to develop organically across the page.
Looking Down the Barrel is ultimately a piece about confronting darkness, emotional pain, and the fragile line between despair and survival. It is a visual record of a difficult chapter in my life and an example of how I have used art to process experiences that can be difficult to express in words.
Looking Down the Barrel is a 22 × 30-inch black-and-white abstract ink drawing created using the same calligraphy pen-and-ink technique as The Beginning of the End. The piece centers around a single abstract eye, with a gun forming the iris and bullet casings falling from the eye like tears.
The imagery comes from a deeply difficult period in my life when I was struggling with suicidal thoughts and found myself confronting the barrel of a gun. The eye represents the experience of looking directly at something devastating, while the gun at its center becomes a symbol of the thoughts and emotions I was struggling to escape.
The falling bullet casings take the place of tears, turning an internal experience into something physical and visible. I used the repetitive process of dipping the calligraphy pen into ink and building the image through layers of marks, allowing the drawing to develop organically across the page.
Looking Down the Barrel is ultimately a piece about confronting darkness, emotional pain, and the fragile line between despair and survival. It is a visual record of a difficult chapter in my life and an example of how I have used art to process experiences that can be difficult to express in words.