HIDEOUS FAILURES

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Imagine if you had a solo show. Like all the right people were due to come, you were pretty sure they would come and they said they would come anyway so fingers crossed. And then you are there with your colossal paintings and this momentous occasion, a significant moment, a clear marker of success and nearly all the important people you invited do come, thank God. But then the gallery door opens, and all your failed abandoned paintings which are kept in a secret cupboard, appear and they waddle like penguins into the gallery. With horror you rush over to them and try to push them out of the door and hide them from view but they are strong and demand to be visible like the Revenge of the Repressed. The important people start to notice and are horrified by the embarrassing shit before them. They can’t believe you have pretended to be a good artist because a good artist would not be capable of making such shit. They leave.

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She became visibly distressed. She was crying begging her embarrassing paintings to leave but at the same time their appearance triggered a deep trauma of loss, a loss of self deep inside the core of her being and she could not turn her back on them this time and she held her hideous failures the way someone would cradle an injured pet with tears running down her face