The Mirror

INTERIOR

Living temporarily without my own space meant using someone else’s mirror.  In previous years I had only looked at myself in my ‘home’ mirror.  I knew the reflection intimately.  I still saw the many flaws but I was more accepting and somewhat comforted by its familiarity.  I still saw the self doubt and uncertainty of being a human female artist and the distinctive signs of a well-lived face and body. Now there are heavier, thicker disturbances and I experience the ”swipe left, swipe right social marketing pretending to be professional curatorial practice”, view of the art world. I am now a brand; a commodity while in the past the focus was more on the artwork as the “business”; artists could stay a little out of the picture frame.  Branding, being a brand, being a commodity is what artists’ bodies and work have jointly become (and possibly this was always true). I AM BRANDED.  My only brand is marked on my body in drawn charcoal on flesh, thus metaphorically burnt into my flesh-   HUMAN  and ARTIST and in mirror reflections.   Today when I look into my brand new, state of the art, ‘look at me’ look at me’ home mirror I currently see a foreign body, a less familiar face.  Yes I look like my mother and sisters but the face staring out at me asks me again and again. Why? Why?  Why are you doing this?  Why are you living this life?  Why is this the art life you are accepting for yourself?  Remnants of me remain although a new film, one of weariness, exhaustion and hostility float by.  Yes I am still angry a lot these days but I think I will be angry until I stop being angry.  New work in progress with a lot of things to consider.

THE MIRROR

EXTERIOR

During that time of living inside and outside someone else’s home the afternoon sun setting each day reminded me of that power outside of myself, that power in the universe, that light, that space outside of me that is incomprehensible to my brain; that kept me sane and connected to the external world; a sign that I existed somewhere in the universe, while I looked into someone else’s mirror inside.