On page 35, the shape of the shadow curves down to a taper of a thought or idea-the genesis of her self-articulation through the graphic memoir she comes to write in the future. The shadow forms a part of Katie’s own pen on page 7, speaking to the complexities of her embodiment as a creative resource. And while the shadow is a threatening presence, it is also a companion, an inextricable part of herself, and the fodder for her artistic practice. On page 105, it emerges out of Katie’s throat, making visible the urge to vomit, and it also mimics the loss and recovery of consciousness due to self-starvation (142-147).

As the narrative progresses, the shadow arguably becomes the embodiment of Katie’s anorexia. The shadow is with Katie from childhood and grows on the page to represent an increasingly agitated psychological state of mind. But more interestingly, Katie’s complex interiority is made almost always hyper-visible through the shadow. On occasion, the shadow functions as a gutter, transforming separate images into single ideas and fracturing both time and space. The shadow is a richly symbolic figure, enabling Green to push formal and thematic boundaries. Green’s line work is also both minimalist and lavish, and comes most captivatingly alive in dynamic scribbles that shape-shift across pages as characters of their own. Through scenes unfolding along grayscale gradients punctuated by breaths of muted color, Green manages to paint pages that feel claustrophobic and oppressive one moment and airy and lighthearted the next. In My Shadow, Green depicts Katie’s experience with eating disorders-beginning with childhood anorexia-anxiety, and traumatic sexual abuse, by marrying an array of contradictory styles.

Wresting the representation of anorexia (and eating disorders more generally) from the realms of medical science, contemporary writers and artists have turned to a different pictorial form-the graphic form-creating a profusion of narratives including British artist Katie Green’s debut memoir, Lighter Than My Shadow (2013).

“Pictures mark an increase in the symbolic tenor of the discourse of anorexia,” writes Erin O’Connor in her study of how late-19 th century medical photography came to frame anorexia nervosa as a discrete pathology.

National Library of Medicine Graphic Medicine Exhibit.

Essential Graphic Medicine: An Annotated Bibliography.

A Graphic Medicine Conversation with Sam Hester.

Graphic Medicine International Collective.

Lighter than my shadow by katie green