I grew up in Northern Ireland, in a religious household, in a country still carrying the Troubles. I learned early that people could be taught to distrust each other by the church they were born into. Neighbours were divided by a this thing that I never understood it, and I never forgave it either. Back then I closed my eyes in prayer and believed nothing. I was the very definition of going through the motions. Leaving for university, I went looking for God somewhere else. Mushrooms, acid, a little DMT. Parks and parties and colours that shouldn't exist. I read The Doors of Perception and realized the world was never as it had been explained to me. Faith didn't disappear for me, it became something else entirely. She sits with her eyes shut, struck through by love, bruised and blue. The arrow is a kind of revelation. Something waits at the edge of the frame, watching. This is what it looks like to lose a religion and find another one inside yourself. Oil on canvas (self-portrait) by Rocketgirl, 2026. Dimensions are 70cm x 50cm.