Pain

My attempts to curry favour with gallery owners and curators are best described as ill advised moments of insanity. Possibly for personal amusement, Taramind Dewhurst, the Chloe clad, immaculately groomed curator of ‘The Onion’ gallery, sacrificed some time to see me.

Ushering me towards a vast fibreglass sculpture of what appeared to be a rabid representation of a cat in decline, Taramind purred, “It’s sublime isn’t it? Such a poignant reference to the transient quality of life and the finality of death in such an inescapable way”.

I adopted what I considered to be a knowledgeable pose and nodded sagely. Tracing a finger across the belly of the cat, Taramind turned to me, a smile playing on her glossy lips, “So tell me about your bottles”.

Misery. Time to hit the bottle and get smashed.

I managed to cobble together a stuttering of words relating to semiotics, structuralism and of my position within popular culture, but I knew I was out of my depth. Taramind gazed at me, slightly flirtatiously, but with just about the right amount of derision to ensure the onset of an anxiety attack.

Sometime later, whilst recovering in my car it occurred to me that if Picasso was a culinary four course extravaganza, served in only the best restaurants in town, then I was the artistic equivalent of Pot Noodle, a grubby secret, instantly gratifying but leaving no lasting impression. I recognised my place in the food chain, something had to be done and so began the machinations of my masterplan.

17 November 2006