Unmasked Intensity by Rae Sabine This piece developed over several art therapy sessions as I explored representing my neurodivergent experience. On corrugated cardboard, I painted thousands of bright orange watercolour marks first, then layered two purples to form the violet field over them. The orange pushes through in places, glowing luminously where it emerges, settling into the ridges and valleys. These clusters reflect how sensations, thoughts and details arrive all at o

I speak from the blue, calm, steady, like open sky. I bring what I know, offer it plainly, with the quiet clarity that feels like truth. But then, without warning, red erupts. It crashes through the centre, hot, loud, jagged, like I’ve lit a fuse I didn’t know was there, like my words, meant as sharing, have somehow become a weapon in someone else’s storm. I stand, blinking in the heat of it, singed by their fury, searching backwards through my steps what did I do? But this i