PORTRAITS OF ISOLATION
The Virtual Opening Night was live streamed on Facebook - 6th October 2020
As a response to Lockdown I created a series of paintings based on people’s experience of lockdown.
Many thanks all the participants for being brave enough to share their experiences with me and to Marissa Lambert and With-You for making the connections, but also for being the back stop for both the participants and myself.
Because of social-isolation contact has been through a combination of email, telephone, and videoconference. Everything shared has been in confidence and only used to create the paintings. Any background information relating to each painting has been included with the agreement of the participant.
I hope that these paintings will help to raise awareness and consciousness of the issues surrounding isolation.
The project has again highlighted the power of art, and the process of being part of the dialogue leading to a painting, to be cathartic. This is something I’ll pick up in a blog post soon.
Portrait of Isolation
J was one of the first people I exchanged emails with - her emails were very stark – missing friends and fearing for the safety of her family - and feeling the days merging into one. Of all the paintings this is probably the darkest … although … and this was a subconscious inclusion I hadn’t realised until Justine, who had also been struggling herself at times during lockdown, sent me this poem, and she describes Yellow as a colour of Hope.
Yellow Dress of Hope
The cloth can't hide me caving in upon myself,
Nowhere to go, nobody to see...
I might as well be naked, dumb, mute.
Falling backwards into a black hole of daily stats, numbers
The relentless news of deaths, survivors, tragedies,
Wrestling with it all in a twilight world
Each day morphs into the next,
An unbroken routine, wrenched from the life I knew
I feel like neither man nor woman
Only the meagre stool I sit on grounds me
Angular and awkward, my tired body tries to find some comfort, peace,
While my mind cannot.
Even my hands have grown a new dimension
To cradle my ponderous head
I despair,
Yet I still wear my yellow dress of hope.
Absence
In some ways this painting speaks for itself.
P a keen gardener felt more than anything the absence of his grandchildren from his garden. I discussed with him the idea of painting his garden but with the absent children - there in his memories – but not there.
Whilst this painting may again seem bleak, he has sent me some more recent picture of the now re-inhabited, happy garden – and I have promised to do another version of this painting.
Café
I spoke to “Ian” for a long time on the phone quite early on in lockdown. He talked about missing his favourite café and missing being around people.
He also mentioned liking paintings he liked by the impressionist painters.
I spent some time looking at paintings by Monet and Renoir and the idea that struck me was how different some of those pictures might have looked if the people in them were “social distancing”. I decided to create a painting that portrayed this.
It is based on one of Renoir’s called the Luncheon of the Boating Party.
My version shows the scene with just a few people, maybe sad, but I think they are at peace with the situation, and optimistic of better times to come.
Wash Your Hands!
This painting highlights the law of unintended consequences.
The subject of the paintings has struggling with OCD for many years - driven by the fear of being unclean and becoming contaminated by dirt and germs – leading to excessing handwashing - at times chapped and red raw with the over washing.
Something they had gotten under control – with a mix of medication and techniques including CBT … until Covid allowed the OCD to thrive and the hand washing to recommence.– sadly years of professional help, medication and family support had been undermined.
Sometimes the idea for a painting comes straightaway – when we talked about the red, raw chapped hands I instantly thought of the visceral paintings of Jenny Saville
RESPONSE : I feel you have completely reflected the inward struggles through the symbol of the hands. The colours also reflect the soreness of the hands and the turmoil of the mind. The viewer clearly knows there is angst in the narrative of the painting
I am completely blown away by it.
This is a link to a BBC piece about managing anxiety and OCD during the pandemic.
Sonata
This painting is based on my own feelings about lockdown, and in particular the fate of live events.
Will the piano be played again?
What will become of live venues?
The painting is based on a photograph of a now demolished theatre. The work is intentionally ambiguous, both optimistic with light coming in, and also sad with ghost-like qualities and the darker areas with suggestive of the past reminisce and what had once been in a great venue
The Puppeteer
This painting is based on Zara who shared her thoughts and feelings during via a series of emails during lockdown. It conveys the realisation that her anxiety was not bigger than her. That she was in control – she was the puppeteer – initially a scary thought, but ultimately empowering – and a source of HOPE
Unlike the hand-washing painting where the idea emerged very quickly, with Zara it was a much more iterative process – where she shared her thoughts and feelings – and I would follow up with questions. Thus creating this painting became a journey of self-discovery.
Leading ultimately to the idea of a Puppeteer. This was something Zara mentioned quite early in our dialogue – but the key moment was when I asked her “who was the puppeteer”. From there the idea for the painting emerged. I asked her how she felt about being “in” the painting – something I felt would make the piece more powerful and personal – but also, I knew is a big step psychologically and emotionally. It is the point when the painting moves from third to first person. When the painting becomes about you and not just an abstract idea. Zara has recorded her thoughts about the experience – one thing she said, that will resonate with many people, is “sometimes you think you are screaming – but you don’t realise that others don’t realise” – so share – its OK to have feelings.
I will be adding a link to Zara’s recorded comments, and to the Podcast she has made with Jess - “Mum’s unscripted” – with the goal of allowing Mum’s to know they are not alone … and that there is no shame attached to their feelings.
Rise Up!
One of the first things Jess said at the start of the project was “I have this amazing little boy and a brilliant, supportive husband, but I feel I’m not living in the moment and enjoying what I have as I’m constantly riddled with anxiety and low mood.” There was a real sense that she should not be feeling as she did.
As we talked more, she mentioned the idea of starting to live again’ - I asked her to describe what that feeling would be like?
Did she had an image of how that might feel in her head? Could she visualise it?
The idea for the painting came directly from her response …
I think everything would be as it is but brighter, and I would feel lighter. Almost as if I’m currently living in black and white, my shoulders feel heavy with weight of my head.
I suppose I mean it is like living in an old black and white film, when I want to be in technicolour – if that makes sense! I think I said before I would change absolutely nothing about my life, I love the life I’ve created for myself, I just wish my demons would keep at bay so I can enjoy it.
Did you ever see that film, Pleasantville? Everything started off in black & white, then gradually as the film went on the characters and their surroundings started going colourful as they rebelled or essentially started living.
This all gelled with a sense that Jess felt trapped in her home … I wanted to create a painting that captured this sense of rising up – of the weight being removed and her breaking free – again I felt the painting would be more powerful if she herself were the person rising up – she echoed the comments of many of the participants –
The idea of me being in it sounds very scary,
I avoid photos, so a painting seems even more scary.
However, my husband says I’ve come this far lol so I should go for it.
JESS and ZARA are now working on a series of PODCASTs entitled “Mum’s unscripted” – with the goal of allowing Mum’s to know they are not alone … and that there is no shame attached to their feelings
Regeneration
This painting is unusual in that it is painted over another painting!
Based on our early conversations I created a painting that was too dark and pessimistic – too stark – wrong artistic direction
At that point Katie pulled back from the project to focus on her recovery.
However there was one element of the first painting that Katie related to – the lotus flower - symbolic for its beauty – but also because they only grow in muddy water – it is a metaphor for facing challenges and troubles – necessary to bloom
So, I painted over the first painting and tried to create something more metaphorical and hopeful, and shared that with her later ….
Fortunately, Katie’s reaction to this work was much more positive – and she has shared the picture with her therapist as a thankyou for their input to her recovery.
Recovery
Chik is one of the participants on the Q&A – I first talked to him not long after he was discharged from Papworth having recovered from Covid. His story is best portrayed in his own words.
This poem below sums up his experience – but also his anger at his treatment – that was symptomatic of much that was wrong with our initial response Covid. The painting references elements of his experience:
- The initial confusion as the epidemic took control
- His treatment from the amazing staff at Papworth
- The strength he drew from his Rugby playing
- The Gara is emblematic of his Sierra Leonean ancestry.
Survived.....Needlessly died by Chikezie Knox-Macaulay
I lay
To catch a breath
But the words echo
From Doctor Death.
Over 20 years NHS worked
Each year many lives saved
But that fateful day, March 23rd
My life was nearly paid
Management consumed in a panic
I was thrust into the unknown
Now lying in ICU, Papworth
No family, all alone
God alone knows
Why I survived
Ancestors? Rugby? Sheer will?
Not to ever forget those, who needlessly died
Fight, to stay alive
Fight, against those whose lied
Fight, for family justice
Fight, for every soul that needlessly died
Namaste
One of the first things Vijya said to me was that lockdown made her feel like she was in prison – “what have I done wrong”
She was finding sleep hard to find, because of her thoughts, frustration and anger and agitation –“Just Worry”
As a way of combating her agitation Vijya uses meditation – and she described a vision she had whilst meditating, a scene of moonlit still dark water, a lake or river - with a silhouette of trees in far banks, left of water an image of Lord Krishna with hands in form of ‘namaste’ as if immersed to the waist in the water at the front of this scene.
She added “It was as if I was immersed in the middle of the water myself – next to Lord Krishna – as there was shore or bank except on the other side where the trees were and the moon shining bright just above almost central but more to the left past the trees”.
Hope
This painting is another inspired by meditation
Sharif’s initial feelings about Covid were a concern that he might be dragged back to face demons from his past – after about three weeks he started to accept that this would last a while – and that strangely others were experiencing some of the anxiety that he was feeling - part of that acceptance was his use of meditation journeys
For him he would focus on:
· nature
· and raindrops falling on a roof
· and water
· listening to the sea
… and as we can see here seeing the light emerging through the trees in the forest
Painting is called HOPE
Freedom
At the start of my conversations with Elle she threw me a curved ball – she said she had an image in her head – a picture – but that she wasn’t going to tell me what it was!! After we’d shared many emails and a video conference I knew that the painting needed to be about the idea of escape – at which point she relented and she described a white horse freeing itself from its shackles – how many horses can you see …
For Elle in some way’s lockdown has been a positive thing – an unasked-for opportunity to stop the treadmill and reflect. She has been running away and hiding many of her feelings for a long time – as she put it Running wild but never free …
Trying for a long time to come to terms with feelings of shame and guilt – but these last few months – and being part of this project, has allowed her to let go of that shame and guilt – as she says “freeing my soul and allowing me to be me”