Gateway to British Art Prize 2025
Third place: Keisha Bovell
When I first looked at C.R.W. Nevinson’s The Wave (1917), I didn’t just see a piece of art, I felt something connect inside me. It was as if someone had taken the chaos, I carry within myself and placed it in front of me in the form of this massive, crashing wave and from this I didn’t feel alone when I looked at it. I didn’t feel like I was screaming into deaf ears anymore. It felt like Nevinson had felt this storm before, and through his painting, was saying, “I’ve been here too.” For me, The Wave isn’t just about nature or war. It’s about emotion. It’s about the internal destruction and beauty of my depression, anxiety, and bipolar II.
There’s something strangely comforting about the way Nevinson depicts the wave. It’s not peaceful or calm in fact, it’s overwhelming. The energy of it feels like it’s about to crash down at any moment. But maybe that’s why it speaks to me so deeply. Living with anxiety often feels like that always waiting for the next crash, the next emotional hit. And bipolar II disorder adds its own unpredictable rhythm: the highs that feel like you’re rising with the tide, and the lows that pull you under so fast you don’t even realize you’re drowning. The Wave captures all of this. The force, the movement, the inevitable collapse. But instead of making me feel afraid, it makes me feel seen. It reminds me that there’s something bigger than me not in a threatening way, but in a way that tells me it’s okay to feel overwhelmed.
One of the things I find most powerful about the image is that despite all its intensity, it’s still beautiful. The wave is stunning in its scale, in its detail, in the emotion it carries. That beauty matters. Because when I look at it, I start to see that maybe there’s beauty in my own chaos too. Depression often tells me I’m broken and lowers myself esteem. Anxiety tells me I’m weak and impatient. Bipolar tells me I’m too much, or not enough. But The Wave shows me that things can be wild, messy, dangerous and still worth looking at. Still worth understanding. It makes me believe, even just for a moment, that my emotions aren’t something to be ashamed of. They’re something to be expressed, just like Nevinson expressed his.
It’s clear to me that Nevinson wasn’t just painting a wave, he was expressing pain. Maybe his came from war, or trauma, or things we’ll never know. But that pain radiates through the print, and in doing so, it creates a kind of silent connection between him and me. There’s a loneliness that comes with living inside your own mind, especially when your mind is constantly pulling you in different emotional directions. But The Wave makes me feel like someone else has lived in that same space. That someone else has felt the tension between collapse and beauty, between fear and peace. And because of that, I don’t feel invisible when I look at it. I feel understood. I feel like someone is finally speaking my language, a language spoken with images and emotions instead of words.
More than anything, The Wave feels like a companion. It doesn’t judge. It doesn’t try to fix me. It just exists alongside me it is me and, in a way, gives a voice to the side of me who was silenced. It can also be a quiet presence that reminds me I’m not the only one who feels the way I do. That there is meaning in my storm and the things I go through like the darkness, chaos, the rise and fall are real human and valid feelings.
In the end, The Wave is more than just a piece of art. It’s a reflection of my inner world, a symbol of the emotional tide I live with every day. It shows me my pain, but it shows it to me in a way that feels safe and even beautiful. It reminds me that I’m not alone that others have felt this too, and that it’s okay to feel deeply. And for that, I’ll always be grateful I took this opportunity because of it I found this beautiful art piece. I feel if I can look at The Wave every day I’ll have someone standing beside me, not to pull me out of the storm, but to hold my hand as I go through it.
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