To me, the bathtub is a symbol of my most helpless moments as it is a place I use to soothe pain. I felt inspired by Egon Schiele’s images of emaciated, exposed figures and warm/cool toned juxtaposing colour palettes. In this piece, I wanted to confront this memory by depicting a fragile but slowly healing body, one whose self is slowly returning and has almost reached their fingertips. As well, the large scale of the piece portrays the overwhelming feelings of vulnerability.
Carmen is a work that personifies this pain shared between my grandmother and I. Searching through my closet, I found an old dress passed down to me from my grandmother and became fascinated with the idea of heritage and how my life with endometriosis has also been experienced by my grandmother. I imagined our relationship as an endless and crossing thread that ties us together. The motif of the embroidered crosses is an example of the stitching pain I have experienced with endometriosis.
I was inspired by T.S Eliot's poem “The Wasteland” where he insinuates the knowledge of impending death. In interpreting this poem, I found that one may feel a certain comfort in the understanding that everything comes to an end. Taking this symbol of a wasteland, a place where things decompose, I used it as an image of acceptance. I aimed to convey feelings of hope through a stream of colour to depict light and goodness.
The term amalgamation is the process of merging to form a completely new entity. Similarly, this piece demonstrates the difficulty of uniting different parts of oneself to feel whole, and how these conflicting emotions can interfere and become damaging. The strong splashes of colour fight to combine with the dominant brush strokes and create the intense feeling of struggle with oneself. Similar to the piece ‘Tangled’ I continued this motif to portray the emotions of battling with oneself.
The phrase “can we stay a little longer” is used to indicate that the person is not ready to leave. Similarly, I have felt moments of relief and comfort where I am reluctant to let go and accept when these moments end. Layering was carried on strongly in this piece with the two figures overlapping while one fades more into the background to create feelings of withdrawal and hurt. I wanted to convey these emotions to an audience so they may connect to this constant push and pull relationship.
