5 Minutes
30 × 42 in
Charcoal on Paper
“For 5 minutes…
fear takes over
and love becomes impossible to hear”
- tylar knox
5 Minutes explores the way anxiety can distort the people we love most. In moments of fear, a familiar face can become unrecognizable, and love becomes drowned out by the mind's desperate search for danger.
Existing in the tension between fear and trust, 5 Minutes asks: How do we hold onto love when anxiety convinces us it no longer exists?
I created 5 Minutes from a battle I face every day. There are moments when my mind convinces me that the people I love most have suddenly become a threat. In those moments, fear drowns out reason, and I have to fight my way back to what I know is true. Though it may only last a figurative five minutes, the emotional weight of those moments can feel endless. 5 Minutes is a testament to the quiet battle of choosing trust when anxiety insists on fear.
The fear reflected in the eye represents the moment anxiety traps us within our own minds. It captures the moment reason is abandoned, leaving us unable to distinguish fear from reality.
The heavy, sweeping strokes of charcoal represent the battle itself. They embody the relentless conflict between fear and reason as the mind struggles to find its way back to truth.
The harsh outline along the left side of the face represents how anxiety carves a false image of the people I love. In moments of fear, their face is slowly reshaped by anxious interpretations until the person before me no longer reflects reality, but the story my mind has created.