White Noise - OCD With Yasmin Arkinstall
Geordie Gem Williamson
White Noise - OCD With Yasmin Arkinstall [detail] 2025
Portrait of Yasmin Arkinstall
Oil on stretched linen
167.64 x 182.88 cm
About the Artwork
White Noise was painted throughout 2024/25, responding to a debilitating mental health crisis from age 13. After three years, having lost a good chunk of my developmental teen-hood, I returned to school, and reflected on these dark few years and the brighter years to come. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) is a persistently complex affliction. If OCD gave me anything, it was an affinity for pedanticism, some of which I was able to channel into art making. Yasmin Arkinstall, a talented opera singer and OCD advocate, helped turn this exploratory portrait into reality. I don’t expect people to see the piece and identify the abstract ideas, but I do hope that it fosters questions, and encourages research into OCD realities, instead of misguided perceptions. With knowledge comes understanding—in self, in families, in healthcare. For such a misunderstood disorder, knowledge has the power to save years, connections, and lives.
About the Artist
Geordie Gem Williamson is an 18-year-old Fine Arts and Science student from Central Victoria, specialising in oil painting and coloured pencil drawing. Geordie completed his VCE in 2025, receiving the Dux for both visual arts subjects he undertook. He has exhibited locally, regionally and nationally in Rotary and community shows such as Daylesford Rotary Art Show (2023, 2024) and the Camberwell Art Show (2023, 2025); student shows such as RAW Arts Bendigo (2025) and BSSC acquisition (2025); professional exhibitions such as Tatiara Art Prize (2025), Len Fox Painting Prize (2024), and The Percivals (2024) in public galleries; and the Lennox Street Art Award (2025) and Queerthentic (2024) in private gallery spaces.