Diary Drawing Day 61 , 1997
30.5 x 22.9 cm (h x w)
Watercolour and pencil on paper

I just really love this. I've actually got a print of it in my downstairs toilet. I mean, it's, I suppose a bit shocking, but I love the fact, I did a lot of drawings about this kind of horror, horrifying images and thoughts and sort of hallucinations I had and self-destructive urges that will, you know, overwhelm you when you're in state of such anguish and distress. They're seen as a disorder. They're not, they're a kind of human way. It's like the men in the First World War had sort of a paralysis of the face, and strange body actions. It's a sort of physical manifestation of anguish, which is what I felt most of the time. Overwhelmed with anguish and despair, of what I've seen and known of the world. And so, this, sort of painterly version with a tiny hammer, and a tiny knife as my eyebrows, and this knife for a nose. I cannot tell you how much I love this drawing. With that tiny face it's so fresh and expressive, and I love the blobs of paint. I love watercolour paint the way it sort of bursts out onto the water you put there. And it summed up what I felt at the time, bleakly lonely and overwhelmed by grief and despair at humanity and the world.

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