Much of my recent work has come into being as a consequence of years of exposure to a variety of therapies and numerous hospitalizations. I'm a trauma survivor, and like many others, suffer from various Dissociative Disorders, where, in simplistic terms, different 'parts' of one's personality become disjointed and can potentially separate and assume control of the body and mind.

For me, the journey through therapy has been a very difficult one, and throughout all of the therapy the single most difficult task, was the finding of voices for both myself, and my 'parts'. These parts, I have come to understand represent the lasting vestige or shadow of a soul burnt into my psyche from the pain of a single moment in time, when as a child I was exposed to trauma – and so I call my parts 'Souls'.

Each child cries out desperately for validation and support, and can't understand why the world left her alone, unprotected and exposed to the worst horrors that men and women can visit upon others. Each child, like a deer caught in the headlights, held onto her voice for self protection, and to this day has yet to articulate her pain in words. But, through my drawing, each child's pain is heard loud and clear.

Therapy has been very hard for me because the health industry's most oft deployed treatment is Group Therapy - I hate group therapy. How could anyone think it would be otherwise? My children's wounds are so raw and painful, how could anyone believe parading the pain of one's children before a room full of strangers would help? The problem with these sessions is that if they are to succeed, they must arouse in me the children and the souls of my past. Unfortunately with the arrival of each child, also comes that child's moment of pain, and with the pain most assuredly comes the silence - for I inevitably lose my voice. I face a room full of gawkers, and endure more pain. It was silence, I learned, that saved me before in those horrible moments when I was alone without the gawkers, and each present horror requires even more silence.

And yet, the 'Souls' represent my discovery of a voice encouraged through these group therapy sessions. During one protracted stay on a Psychiatric Unit, in Sheppard Pratt, I forced myself to attend group therapy. As usual the sessions were tortuous, but I forced myself to endure. I left each session with a fountain of unspoken and unleashed energy. By the time I got back to my room this energy had spilled forwards and outwards onto the pages of magazines which offered the quickest means of giving voice to the pain within. Taking advantage of the ready constructed forms presented by B&W photos and wiping out the faces with white paint, I drew expressions onto the white cutouts that remained – the Souls were born, one at a time, each one an expression of pain and deep rooted anguish.

Although these drawings are driven by my own traumatic experiences, I have yet to meet an individual without skeletons in their closet. Our Souls call out to us. They don't want to be silenced. Look into our eyes, they say, and listen.