I WEAR IT LIKE A TATTOO (2017)

I tried to drink it away. I tried to put one in the air. I tried to dance it away. I tried to change it with my hair. I ran my credit card bill up. Thought a new dress would make it better. I tried to work it away but that just made me even sadder. I tried to keep myself busy. I ran around in circles, think I made myself dizzy. I slept it away. I sexed it away. I read it away. Thought if I was alone then maybe I could recover to write it away or cry it away. ~ Solange.

This painting represents being stuck in the disco. The disco is a musical coping mechanism and a place to be yourself and let go as a way of dealing with the emotional and physical highs and lows of prophylactic mastectomies and reconstruction. Both a snare and an escape, the disco ball is made of shapes, stars and diamonds. It explores the grieving process through obsessive rotating circles, complicated repetitive pattern and puzzle pieces. It examines our ways of seeing: how we perceive a beauty that shines and sparkles from the outside but can’t know what lies beneath it just from looking superficially. Its layers are pain, loneliness, sadness, happiness, loss, sexuality, claustrophobia, anxiety, insomnia, humour, risk and an overwhelming desire to be “on the other side”. When tell your personal story about breast cancer in the public eye, the story literally ends up on your face like a tattoo, and becomes the first thing about you that people see.

Exhibited at the Long Gallery, Montsalvat Arts Centre, Eltham, Victoria, in May 2017 as part of What Lies Beneath, a conceptual group exhibition by Thou Art Mum exploring the theme of layers.