By Adam Blanchard
Senior Reillyquinn Cahill uses art as a means to raise awareness about the struggles of mental health. She finds passion in advocating for mental health, an issue Cahill has fought with.
Cahill’s art journey started in her first year at South Glens Fall High School after taking a drawing class with art teacher Tom Myott. Originally, Cahill planned to be a veterinarian, but was swayed from her decision by Myott.
“He made me understand that I can be an artist and I can make money through art,” Cahill said.
Around her hometown of South Glens Falls, Cahill has had pieces displayed in shows at SUNY Adirondack and at the Hyde Collection, a small art museum in Glens Falls.
Since then, art has worked its way into every part of Cahill’s life. Whether it be crocheting at home or sketching during long hikes, Cahill finds comfort in art.
“Even if I don’t bring my painting stuff or my sketching stuff, I’ll always be like, ‘Damn, I wish I did,’” Cahill said. “It’s hard to ask myself, ‘What do I do outside of art?’ Because everything I do is art.”
Cahill has found painting to be her preferred concentration, using oil paint as her medium. With a minor in art therapy, Cahill found she enjoyed the psychology aspect of the minor and picked up a major in psychology in addition to her art major.
Cahill draws inspiration from post-impressionism, an art movement that emphasized emotion, natural lighting and symbolic content.
Currently, she is working on a series for grad school focusing on mental health struggles during childhood. Cahill said she tries to emulate what it was like to grow up battling with mental health while not fully understanding what it was at the time.
Cahill works with pictures from her childhood that she pulls from her parent’s photo albums. She picks photos taken during times where she remembered struggling with her mental health, then brings them into photoshop and gives them fantastical elements. These fantastical aspects are apparent in her piece, “I Get You.”
“There were two photos of me from the same day, and I put them together to make it look like my younger self was having a conversation with herself,” Cahill said. “I like memories and skewing them in a way that I remember them as an adult.”
Cahill interned at the Adirondack Art Association in Essex, New York as a gallery assistant, where she curated shows, interviewed artists exhibiting their work and helped sell pieces.
Although her studies have focused on art, Cahill still finds time to work with animals by volunteering at Tamarack Stables in Morrisonville, New York, helping clean stables, feed horses and assist the owners in any other way needed.
After college, Cahill plans to attend grad school and is deciding between a Master’s degree in psychology and painting or a doctorate in psychology.
After gaining more hands-on experience in psychology by volunteering at the Traumatic Brain Injury Center at Sibley Hall in the future, she hopes to continue to spread awareness about mental health. Cahill said she understands that mental health is a difficult topic that many people don’t want to talk about, but hopes to break the stigma surrounding it.
“I always feel the need to be saying something with my art that people might not necessarily feel comfortable saying with their voice,” Cahill said. “I want people who have struggled the way that I’ve struggled to feel seen when they see my art.”
