My vision of hell is a high-ceilinged, octagonal room with eight doors. The room is exquisitely panelled in oak and all the doors are closed. Each door would open onto paths of opportunity, were it not firmly shut.
One feature of this beautiful room (in my imagining) is that one of the doors is always slightly ajar. There is the prospect of teasing it open to experience things to do, people to see, scents to smell, tastes to savour.
Quite why the room is eight-sided I really can’t say. Perhaps it adds to the grandeur and authority of hellishness. And quite why the hell-dweller so routinely returns to this world of diminished choices is also difficult to tell.
To explore these matters, I’ve started to try and represent elements of confinement. Not that I’m an artist or anything, but it sometimes helps to try and make models of things you can’t put into words.
It is a real pity to spoil the loveliness of the room, but I have assembled a few of my ‘artworks’ to try and understand things better. I can tell you a bit about these if you have time to listen.
The biggest thing is a mural (it isn’t really a mural, it’s on a piece of lining paper so as not to damage the panelling) which shows a person in a group. She is part of the group, in fact she is the leader, yet really doesn’t look as though she fully belongs. She is an imposter and seems to be working hard, yet eyes never quite meet hers and her efforts seem to be unappreciated. She looks very uncomfortable.
Then there’s my model elephant made from cereal boxes and toilet roll middles. I spent a lot of my early life in very poor surroundings. People don’t like to hear about poverty but it does confine the spirit and reduces your options, especially if you’re a girl. So the elephant is about things I try not to mention in case someone gets embarrassed.
I’m working on a model of a tall steel spike, very sharp, to remind me of lucky escapes and near disasters but it’s hard to find the right materials. I have finished a tangle of fine metal filaments – all jumbled up. This is the nightmare of things not yet done, emails unanswered, jobs promised but not yet completed, money owed. I call it ‘stuff to do’, and it’s complicated.
The bed of nails over there – more of a chair really – asks a question: ‘Why am I doing this to myself? Why not just settle for a quiet life?’
Last of all is an installation. A glass case houses a fireman’s axe with a sign, ‘in emergency, break glass’. This is very comforting, the idea that doors can be attacked and broken down with a good axe.
I dwell on this a lot and, although it would be a shame to ruin the woodwork, I think this might be my best option.
