Kelly Anderson

Kelly Anderson is an artist working with drawing and illustration in the digital sphere. Her work focuses on the exploration of mental illness in order to deliver mental health awareness. Anderson uses self-reflection as a way to explore how mental illness affects our physical and mental well-being.

In this series of digital drawings, Anderson examines how Covid-19 has exacerbated certain aspects of her mental health, through the development of internet anxiety, and how her mental illness has manifested itself in physical forms. She uses the metaphor of having “ghosts in your head” to embody how mental illness can affect one’s ability to function. Her ghostly figures represent the unexplained physical manifestations of mental illness that occur randomly throughout her body, while her internet-focused works look at how Covid-19 has perpetuated internet-related anxiety and turned communicative applications into anxiety-inducing devices.

By using a digital platform, Anderson aims to reduce her negative screen time and build a positive experience through processing her reality with mental health. Although these drawings reflect a personal narrative, they aim to represent a broader understanding of how mental illness affects a person in both physical and mental ways.