Ben Haydon

“I was born in 1970 and am largely a self-taught artist, I use my artwork as a means of staying well. The painting is about coping with the highs and lows of schizophrenia and drinking on the streets stuck in a rut. Maybe it was artist’s block and submitting to illness. I have used the dog to represent the lows and euphoric smiling devil as the highs in an abstract form in oils and spray paint, my main two chosen media that I work in. The red lines around the edge symbolise the prison of the mind and a route to self destruction with a black background as an expression of the dark side.”