#099: Melancholy (after Munch and Los Campesinos!) [Self-portrait IX]

Oil on canvas.  You, sitting by the sea and looking out across it after something has happened and you are seeking the space to think about it, but also to start to find a way forward while life carries on around you.

#098: Bringing out the light to dispel the dark

Oil on canvas.  At the centre of the canvas a woman can be seen taking an orb of light from an open box and is in the process of giving this orb to a group of people on the right of the picture who are waiting patiently to receive it.  Behind the woman at the centre is another version of herself, but naked and sitting with her head on her knees, hugging her legs and with her back to the rest of the scene.

The scene as a whole is very dark with the orb of light providing almost the only source of light, lighting the front of the woman and the crowd well/brightly and leaving the woman on the left, and the left hand edges of the painting, mostly in the dark.  The scene takes place inside a stone building with one small window and a door visible on the right behind the waiting crowd.  These allow a little more light on the right hand side of the painting behind the crowd.

---

After: Jones, Jonathan (2022) Interview: ‘An apparition came towards me’: Tracey Emin on seeing a ghost and building a new life in Margate. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2022/apr/25/tracey-emin-ghost-apparition-new-life-margate-cancer-nudes (Accessed 25/4/22).

#097: A lowering of confidence leading to a sort of writer's block

Cartoon sketch.  

Huge letters carved from rock spelling ART loom over a figure who stares up in trepidation.

Next to the figure is a cloud labelled, “full of unfinished ideas”.

#096: Having the same idea over and over again

A rubber stamp repeated over and over again in lines across and down a large piece of paper.

#095: An idea I will never have

[Insert your idea below]

#094: Retirement (As some family members would have me believe; with a little addition of my own)

Oil on canvas.  A far-reaching landscape of sunshine, fields and trees.  On the horizon, though, are dark clouds, and darker lands

#093: Preserving and Pickling Time

Imagine shelves lined with pickling jars - the sort you get in medical museums containing animals preserved for all time.  But inside is a moment in time - a single, completely unique moment that, to you, was one worthy of remembrance and storage.  

Or perhaps these could be special memory balls, with different colours meaning different types of memories, floating around and above you, waiting to be plucked from the air and viewed.  Or film clips, photographs, paintings, sculptures, writing or another artistic response.  Physical items to help recall a moment or memory.

If you were to stop and remember this moment forever, what would you remember about what you can see, smell, feel… and how would you preserve it?

And what moments in your life would you like to remember and record?  Take a moment to recall a few - remember each one - the sights, smells, sounds, feelings - and think about how you would preserve it.  Even if only in your own mind.

Now try and think about this every day so that you are better placed to remember and record special and key events.  And, of course, to get the most out of them at the time - in the moment - to make them all the more memorable.  

To preserve and pickle moments in time.  

An imaginary art response to learning about Ichigo Ichie [ 期一会].