Magdalena Mirto

Like the anxiety I experience in my life, “Anxiety” is made to be overwhelming. Bright green-yellows take center stage, simmering with restless energy like electricity. Dark apples spill onto the page, lightly rotting, illustrating the dread that can set in the back of my mind that encroaches even on beautiful things. With fabric and flowers enclosed in a jagged frame, this piece summarizes how anxiety can be both shocking and subtle, often creeping into my body in disjointed ways. In “Plague Home”, I contrast the comfort of home with the never-ending anxiety of living through a global health crisis. Cut out of colorful construction paper, the home I construct is kitschy, childish, and unassuming, until the dangers of the outside world can no longer be ignored and disrupt our imagined safe place.