My Gurus: ‘Side effects may include outrage, empathy and hope’

As part of the Adam Reynolds Award programme, Jay has developed The Mine* - an interactive game which takes users on a dark journey through the historic and contemporary marginalisation of disabled people. Its main aim is the amplification of stories and voices often overlooked by the mainstream. Here is where the journey started.

Nameless voices

I was 20 when I had my first psychotic episode. I was good at hiding it. I’d been trying to hide my autistic traits for years, so this was just another one for the mix.

Until then, I had been a traditional, photorealist artist focusing on drawing. It was skilful but cold work I produced. Looking back, I think I was quite an isolated, cold person at that point, with slightly underdeveloped empathy.

It started with one voice. This voice began manifesting as visual hallucinations. I couldn’t look at her directly, but she existed in dark places - terrifying to witness in my peripheral vision. She was comforting in a harsh way. I developed mild traits of dissociative identity disorder where she would take over. Over the following months and years, I experienced a range of auditory, visual and sensory hallucinations. These experiences impacted my art.

I threw myself into my work to stay focused. I needed it as a way to process what was happening. I was training in printmaking at the time, which has an amazing array of processes in its craft and history. I put my experiences into the act of creating - hiding messages in the way I made the pieces.

With more colleagues in my life – albeit imaginary ones - my empathy and experience broadened hugely. I had an in-built support network and, despite terrifying or tragic moments, they made me a better person and a better artist.

Randal Cooke

My BA degree tutor Randal Cooke never put up with my crap. I would come up with big ideas, then get too nervous to do them as they needed teams of people, and lots of planning and logistics to come to life. But he never let it slide.
 
I said I’d print a car. And for weeks, no matter what else I produced, he’d say: “It’s okay, but I look forward to seeing the car”. He called me out constantly and I pushed myself, and discovered pushing myself was okay, even good. 

The worst that could happen would be that I failed. And failing was just learning. There was everything to gain. Whenever I begin a big project, I feel sick with nerves but I’ve got Randal on my shoulder. 

Scary course peer

After three years trying to get into the Royal College of Art I was finally accepted. I couldn’t afford to go but, after applying for a shocking number of grants and bursaries, I was fortunate to receive funding from the Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust for my Masters.

It didn’t start well. Artist’s block struck on a profound scale. I couldn’t understand the lectures and I was regurgitating old ideas. Quality and content-wise, I was bottom of the department. I was blowing it.

During one of the many depressing critiques of the art I was producing, I was criticised by one of my peers. I was actually criticised by many of them, but this particular criticism plagued me. If my work claimed to be about personal experience -  I said I was trying to demystify psychosis - why couldn’t they see any vulnerabilities in it?

This was a huge blow. And it was unequivocally true. I was being too safe and too detached.

Insane artists

When I was writing my thesis on outsider art - Crowded Minds - focusing on the ‘art of the insane’ and its place in history, I was searching for a family tree of strangers, a place in history where I might be acceptable.  

From the start I realised that the invisible have no history. And the efforts to ignore or deny the existence of the insane throughout history has robbed those people of a past, present and future. The diagnoses they were given limited their communication and their truths were cast away. Their work was devalued such that art sensitive to an experience few have known was - and still is - being lost. 

I have kept records of a decade of psychotic episodes. They were never intended to be seen by anyone as I didn’t want to be ridiculed, or worse. But I read and re-read them. I use them to remind me what it was like, what I had lost.

That critique from my classmate rang in my ears. I began to use it in my work. It was terrifying. It was exposing. And it was a breakthrough.

Shape Arts

For years I experienced prejudice, aggression and bias linked to my disabilities - in paid work, my art career and my personal life. And it was having lasting effects.

In the first years of living in London, I was looking for art by people like me. In 2013, I found Shape Arts. I saw Shape Open, an open call exhibition with work by disabled people or artwork about disability. 

It was one of those eye-opening moments. The work was moving, raw, hard-hitting and passionate. Here was an organisation of disabled professionals creating a platform for disabled voices and art, and having a powerful impact on audiences. I wanted to be involved.

I went to a talk where Tony Heaton, Shape’s Chief Executive at the time, said “we are not disabled, we live with impairments in a disabling world”. I remember that every day. 

I was lucky to have my work in three Shape Open exhibitions. I’m not always successful when applying as competition is steep. I felt so proud exhibiting beside artworks that haunt and empower me.

Since then, I have been very grateful to be selected for the Adam Reynolds Shortlist Exhibition, and for the Adam Reynolds Award. Their support has allowed me to think ambitiously and has offered me a voice and a platform, something I value deeply. 

Jay Price is an artist and winner of the Adam Reynolds Award 2022.
 www.shapearts.org.uk/
@ShapeArts | @JPriceArt

*The Mine: a new interactive work by Jay Price launches on 10 November. It is a subversive memorial to the ‘people no-one remembers’ and exposes overlooked histories of disability discrimination. ‘Side effects may include outrage, empathy and hope.’