MEMORY SPELL

Height (cm): 50

Width (cm): 100

Depth (cm): 2

Materials: acrylic, pen, pencil, soft gel, paste, collage

Date Completed: August/September 2024

"This work came out of the desire to erase, forget. Originally the canvas depicted a peacock on a violet background, painted in June in honour of Juno, goddess of love & marriage, & protector of funds. I was appealing to her to intervene in my life. I was unhappy in my relationship & financial situation & not sure how to ‘fix’ either. I created the current iteration of the piece in summer, after breaking up & deciding I would move out of London."

"I wanted to remove all traces of & links to the past self who'd gotten me into undesirable situations in love & money - forget ever having wanted anything big & egoic. I painted over many works in an attempt to overwrite the memories. Heavy on The Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind vibes, basically. I used highly watered down paint with a wide brush. The blue and rhythmic up and down, up and down motions felt very watery too. It helped to convince myself I was washing stuff away. 

"When I wrote the words 'Memory Spell' on the canvas, I was thinking of Basquiat's To Repel Ghosts. I felt in a trance as I carved shapes - sigils - into the wet paint." 

"Many months later (late Feb 2025), I've successfully cycled through the worst of the process and moved on in a lot of ways. Remembering - looking at the relationship and its loss in the face - was, ironically, what helped me to stop holding on so tightly. What's underneath the desire to 'forget' is, I suppose, partly fear that we won't remember. We don't want to erase the past so much as we want to make peace with the ghosts in our head."