A novel set in a corrupt care home, due to be published by Social Disease in October 2008.
Rebekah sent me the first section of the book entitled at the time 'The Old Woman', a year or so ago. I was intruigued by the story and started to make some images about the idea of imprisonment, the old woman being imprisoned inside her deteriorated memory, inside her head, inside her body, inside the hospital. The principal ideas of fragility and security in the book correlated directly with the themes in my own work, so conversing about and responding to Rebekah's writing proved mutually beneficial.
The organic shapes which surround the heads are intended to reflect the idea of inside out and the dismemberment and transfer of organs. The heads of the characters breathe, when able, through veins or orifices in the blackened bodily organs, and each image floats on the page without context - casting no shadow.
"The old woman, one of the principal characters, is bedridden. She can’t speak and has limited movement in her face, neck and head. Her face is heavily bandaged – nurses tell her it was badly bruised when she suffered a stroke – and she has lost her memory. Though she has plenty of visitors, all of whom claim her as their mother or grandmother, she can’t remember any of them and struggles to imagine how they could all be related and why they would all call her different names.
As the characters' stories unfold, not only do we question the home’s need for an industrial-sized incinerator, we start to explore the different aspects of what it means to be at home: in our own country, in our own family, and in our own skin."
Rebekah Lattin-Rawstrone 2008.
Numbers 1,2,3,4,7,10 and 19 of 20 ink drawings on 300g Somerset paper each measuring 40 x 33cm
Rebekah Lattin-Rawstrone and 'Tales of the Decongested'