The artwork that saved my life.

When I was young, I wanted to be an illustrator. I would spend hours drawing highly detailed drawings. It seemed like my future was set. But then you grow up and life hands you all of its twists and turns. I chased the easy money instead of following my dreams. I worked in factories, mowed lawns and tried out so many different jobs that I can’t even remember them all.

This lack of direction caused me a huge amount of anxiety as I hit my thirties. It all came to a head at the beginning of the pandemic. It was a sudden decline into depression that saw me lose weight, lose any interest in life and lose myself. I tried various ways to cope to no avail until one day, I picked up a pen. At the end of the day when the kids were in bed, I would unwind and release my stress onto the page. This therapeutic exercise would allow me to ignore the real world and focus wholly on the drawing. Using pen over pencil forced me to focus completely due to it’s unforgiving permanency. At first I was just drawing repetitive shapes and mind numbing patterns. That evolved into an idea..

On March the 3rd 2020, I bought a large piece of card and decided on an idea. Inspired by my time in England with it’s castles and history, my love of fantasy books and artists such as Escher, ‘Castle’ was born. Almost 2 years later I have finally laid the pen to rest. Castle is complete. This artwork pulled me from my downward spiral. It gave me something to look forward to everyday. I would sit down for a few hours each night and sink myself into the paper. There was no master plan, no motive other than to unwind and give my creativity an outlet.

My life is back on track now. My childhood dream has found its way home and I’m suddenly very excited about what my future holds.

-Ryan Forster (Sethius)