In the fall of 2022, I was hit by a car while riding a motorized scooter. I suffered a concussion, injuries throughout my spine, neck, and right side of my body, and a severe downturn in my mental health. My injuries held me back from my active life and my longtime anxiety struggles became overwhelming to manage between finishing university classes with a brain injury and panicking near the streets. This piece epitomizes the daily struggle that a car accident caused for my physical and mental health
Alayna Weldon is an Oklahoman artist receiving her BFA in Art, Technology, and Culture and her BA in Art History Summa cum Laude in May, 2024. As an interdisciplinary artist, she makes figurative artwork that focuses on the female or AFAB form, most often representing herself and her own body. Her work expresses her own experience as a formerly-closeted queer woman who has suffered from mental health issues, severe panic and anxiety, eating disorders, and an overall learned hatred for herself as a woman after societal pressures shaped her opinions of herself and womanhood since childhood. Her work also explores the concept of femininity as a spiritual facet that is housed in us all, regardless of sex or gender, and reclaiming femininity after centuries of European patriarchy shaming it into the shadows.
