David Planeta turned his experience of depression into art! His digital paintings are both fascinating and puzzling, inviting you to enter the realm of thoughts, revealing what’s inside his head — and also the heads of many who look at his art.
Dark but also hopeful is how one might describe David’s paintings, which are inspired by his personal experience.
Planeta’s work shows a man suffering from depression. He calls his project, “Mini People in the Jungle.” The name refers to what is happening inside a person who struggles to find himself in the jungle of his confusing and mysterious emotions.
“My paintings tell the story of taking a trip to the darkest parts of your soul and bringing the light of love with you, although they were born simply out of the need to express what I felt. In the beginning, I didn’t know what this story would be like and why the works look the way they do. I began to discover their meaning much later, and by discovering the meaning I got to know myself and my weaknesses better,” he told Aleteia.
A world that only exists inside his head
In one of the descriptions of his project, Planeta explains what the jungle he paints is in reality, and why it’s so important to face it.
“As a child, you visit the jungle daily. You live in a world of emotions; you know every tree, every animal, and you feel safe. When you grow up, something bad happens. You learn to hide your emotions, and you learn to behave the way you are expected to. You visit your jungle less and less, and finally, you forget about it.”
The mystery world that only exists inside his head is also his way of telling people what a person suffering from depression feels and experiences, and what challenges a person with depression faces. David Planeta explains that art helped him name what was happening inside him, and this helped him to get healthy again.
“The most important thing is the moment we realize that we can express ourselves and what we feel in what we do. We don’t have to act according to the rules, doing something that we think others will like and accept. We can act in harmony with ourselves, showing others what is inside us regardless of what it is, accepting it and enjoying it,” he told Aleteia.
Understand and accept, in order to change
Planeta emphasizes that understanding and accepting difficult depressive states is the first step towards change.
“We learned to accept only some parts of our personality, while we hide and deny the existence of others, even from ourselves. Expressing what we feel can help us — this way we stop denying the reality and we start accepting it, and acceptance is the first step to change.”
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And today we celebrate...