Trapt: A Reflection on Mental Illness

Winter 2016 - Volume 20 Number 1

Trapt: A Reflection on Mental Illness
digital oil painting on canvas

Jesse Garrett O’Shea, MD

This digital painting was inspired by the struggle and ultimate death of a member of the artist’s family
who suffered from mental illness. The artist looks through the lens of post-medical school training
in psychiatry. The neutral and dark colors represent darkness within, and the bright, vivid colors
represent an unobtainable bliss and an outward façade.

Dr O’Shea is a physician at Florida State University College of Medicine in Tallahassee.