Thoughts behind the artwork...

If you have been viewing my artwork and reading the thoughts behind the images, you have probably seen that my work has a darker bent. This image is in reference to the dark shadow that has always been present deep within me. As a young child, I began to suffer from depression. At a time when depression was not a clinically recognized malady, the only way to deal with it was to somehow force ones way through it. For me, I turned to alcohol. At a very young age I began to punish myself with no understanding of why I was doing so. By the time I reached high school, I was already on the path to being an alcoholic. Actually, I was an alcoholic by then.

As a teenager dealing with addiction, I did not even know that depression was part of the equasion. However, the latently suicidal nature of my actions should have been a strong indicator. I was always the craziest person in the room. My unpredictable nature would see me do things that were dangerous to the point that I could have died many, many times over. As I became older, I came to recognize a shadow in my mind. I called it 'the darkest demon'. It was this shadow that pushed me towards the brink over and over again. This shadow dreamed always at deaths door.

-John Alexander (aka SirJohn)