Melancholia 2014

Melancholia

 1.

Take a look at my face and examine the joy

that my costume expresses and actions employ.

I have trouble disguising my world-weary frown

which is etched in the mask of an obsolete clown.

My career was to laugh and encourage delight

by an abject grotesqueness that also brings fright.

I’m eternally twisted, distorted and morphed

with extravagant pride in what ought to be dwarfed;

I’m enormous and tiny, a knave beyond scale

who makes light of the tragic or sorrowful tale

but who then inexplicably waxes morose

when the story is happy or tender or close.… Continued

Life is only on earth, and not for long.
Kirsten Dunst in Lars Von Trier’s film Melancholia

In Sigmund Freud’s essay ‘Mourning and Melancholia’ (1914-1916) 1, written in collaboration with his daughter Anna Freud, he charts a correlation between these two pathological dispositions with analogous emotional traits. Mourning and melancholia are intertwined with profoundly similar features such as the loss of a loved object and dwelling on loss.… Continued

‘Melancholia’ (2014) represents an exploration of a time in my life when sadness and grief were hanging over me and I was searching for a way to express it. Diagnosed with advanced metastatic cancer in November 2012 and already facing organ-failure, the only treatment that could be offered at the time was palliative pain relief. It was a devastating time as I was preparing to farewell my family and coming to terms with letting go of my identity and work as an artist, my friendships, my home and this world.… Continued