Bareket Kezwer, Toronto, Ontario
Artist statement: Anxiety has visited me regularly since I was a teenager, and I have struggled through a few periods of depression in my life, most recently during the pandemic. Being isolated & cut off from the people I love, being told that sharing physical touch with people was dangerous, and being bombarded with fear based narratives took a serious toll on my mental health.
I am sharing this because despite the growing mental health crisis, there remains so much stigma around sharing our internal struggles, seeing a therapist, taking medication, and being open about our mental health.
I am incredibly grateful that I work with an amazing therapist who I have seen weekly for the last two and a half years. Our time together has supported me through some of the deepest healing of my life.
By looking inward, becoming a friend to myself, and choosing radical self-acceptance and self-compassion I have found a welcoming home in myself and in the world. By connecting daily with gratitude, meditation, yoga, plants, and learning to orient myself towards nourishing choices in all aspects of life, I am learning to live with more ease and an expanded sense of belonging.
It wasn't easy, and there are still days when I struggle, but understanding my neurodivergent mind and how to care for it has transformed my life. If you've struggled or are currently struggling, you are not alone.
Bareket Kezwer is a muralist, community engaged artist and facilitator, poet, collage enthusiast, curator, cultural producer, creative director, graphic designer, mentor, frequent collaborator and eternal optimist.
Their multidisciplinary practice is motivated by a desire to playfully celebrate the power of kindness, curiosity, and compassion and cultivate individual and collective gratitude. They use bright colours, joyful patterns and bold typography to captivate people’s attention, ground them in the present moment, and fill them with a sense of belonging or delight. They passionately create art that promotes radical self love and acceptance and use colour as medicine towards the goal of collective healing. Recently, they have been bringing lessons from their new love of gardening into their art. They feel nourished when they are able to share teachings from their plant and fungi friends that encourage people to cultivate a reciprocal relationship with the natural world.
Through facilitating community engaged art, and curating and producing collaborative murals, they work to engage people through creativity while supporting the growth of inclusive and connected communities.