2023
Acrylic and varnish on folded canvas

‘These days I wear my body like an uninvited guest…. ‘ from Caroline Polachek's song Sunset.

It describes a dis-embodiment that I can relate to. It was me in my late 20s. Living completely in my head with a workaholic lifestyle and totally ignoring my body.

All the subtle wisdom - unnoticed. Pleasure? - don’t care. Pain! - ibuprofen, Exercise? - more competition… Rest! - coffee. Shape - never good enough. And so on.

I was probably the opposite of Botticelli’s Birth of Venus - if you know that famous painting. A naked, relaxed, beautiful woman surfing in on a huge shell. Born from the foamy sea, a goddess in full splendour. The Rihanna of the 1400s.

My ‘shell moment’ came when I walked through a small black door behind a pub in Soho. A few flights of stairs lead up to the consultation rooms of a body therapist.

My god, when I left I felt re-born. Bouncing and floating home through the bustle of Central London. Nothing phased me as I was inside my own body. Some armouring had been cracked and I had this weird and mind-boggling new sensation:

I was inside - me!

A gateway into embodiment had opened. I naturally started to take more ownership of - and responsibility for my somatic self. I felt respect towards my body and a humble gratitude for having one! A connection between my body and the body of planet earth emerged, a bigger picture became visible.

I find living with modern technology challenging in that respect. It is pulling me out of my body! Out of being present with life as it unfolds.

This painting ‘Oceanic Gateway” signifies a scary but wonderful gateway: The body and its endless depth of wisdom and intelligence. I feel the more I listen the more it opens.

2023
Acrylic and varnish on folded canvas

My body said STOP in 2010. A disc in my lower spine had enough of the pressure I had put myself under and gave way. It pushed into some nerves in the spinal column and they switched off. So did my left foot.

Never will I forget the moment when I realised that I had a serious health problem - me! My left foot wouldn’t lift any more so walking was very difficult, running, which I had done 3x a week, impossible.

I was in bed.

Alone - with my thoughts and my pain.

And everything I had tried to run away from flooded back in.

The unfulfilled art career, the break down of a loving relationship, the child that hadn’t come, the draining affairs with the wrong guys I was putting myself through, the competition I felt towards my male colleagues - and the one existential question I could not answer for my life:

Who am I?

It was a gateway of pain and despair and in that moment I decided to walk through it - head on. Right into the dark scary mess.

What I found was utter confusion.

I didn’t know if I was a man or a woman.

I started to write down everything I associated with women, then the same with men. The effect of this list was devastating.

I realised that I was a women hater! And I was in a female body.

In my distorted and dualistic views, women were weak, soft, impressionable, chaotic, obsessed with beauty, too emotional, passive,…. the list was long and negative.

My male list contained everything I wanted: successful, clear, decisive, powerful, cool, full of get-up-and-go, independent, strong, recognised, relaxed, at ease with themselves, confident,…

And it all seemed to be outside of myself! Totally out of reach. I was competing with men but knew I could never reach them, they were the real deal, I was just pretending.

I was stuck in nowhere! I was no-one!

It almost seemed like self harm. I cried for hours as I realised how powerless I had made myself.

But - a layer had been removed. Like the layers of an onion, I was one down! Something nasty had been exposed and suddenly there was space for new thought, a possibility of healing, real emotion and integration of the perceived poles.

Little did I know then that this would only be the beginning :))) Layer after layer… Gate after gate…

When I look back at this first crack appearing in my persona I can only feel compassion for my old me. I am grateful to have art as a medium to express these unspeakable experiences. What they have taught me is that deep down in the unconscious of each and every one of us is an ocean. We don’t like to go for a swim there because its dark, but there is a deep resonance when we see someone else going in. Almost like a longing to follow!

And that’s what my work is about: these transformative, life-changing moments of brutal truth. And the treasures to be found in the darkness.

Sharing this feels edgy and a bit embarrassing, I have to muster up all my courage but I have come to understand that:

There is really NO point in hiding!