Water of life...
Oil on canvas :- 20x24
£250
From my earliest recollections
, I remember my mother, always having a drink
in her hand. What its contents were, would not be revealed to my virgin mind until I was old enough to understand. What I do understand is that it lead to some bizarre rituals. Like chanting to herself, shouting out obscenities, in fact terrifying us all into quiet, unemotional wrecked children. You didn't dare make eye contact with her because if you did, you would become the focus of her mad, incoherent rage. She would force you to sit on her knee and make you kiss her, quite sexualized
in manner. If you got it wrong, she would practice on you until you got it right. You would have to tell her how much you loved her, what you wanted to do with her body, kiss her. You had all the other children's eyes on you, making you shrink inside. Drop to the bottom of the deepest ocean to escape. But she soon brought you back to reality with a slap. She might even bite your lip, face or ear. She would ask why you were pulling away. Scream vulgar words of hatred. Hit you hard. Then toss you to one side like you were unworthy of her sexualized deprivation. You were scum. Until next time, or she picked on one of the others...and that brought new fears...
, I remember my mother, always having a drink in her hand. What its contents were, would not be revealed to my virgin mind until I was old enough to understand. What I do understand is that it lead to some bizarre rituals. Like chanting to herself, shouting out obscenities, in fact terrifying us all into quiet, unemotional wrecked children. You didn't dare make eye contact with her because if you did, you would become the focus of her mad, incoherent rage. She would force you to sit on her knee and make you kiss her, quite sexualized in manner. If you got it wrong, she would practice on you until you got it right. You would have to tell her how much you loved her, what you wanted to do with her body, kiss her. You had all the other children's eyes on you, making you shrink inside. Drop to the bottom of the deepest ocean to escape. But she soon brought you back to reality with a slap. She might even bite your lip, face or ear. She would ask why you were pulling away. Scream vulgar words of hatred. Hit you hard. Then toss you to one side like you were unworthy of her sexualized deprivation. You were scum. Until next time, or she picked on one of the others...and that brought new fears...
. I have chosen to paint them as negative images like those from an old camera. I have added colour from memory to give them a bit of reality and clarity from the gloom surrounding us. I have carried this around with me for so long, I feel I will never unshackle the pain. I have talked about my 
with great difficulty. It often ended with me getting really angry, very uptight with everyone around me and also very 
. In the picture, we see lots of children. I'm 1 0f 9. We are all 12 to 13 months apart. To say it was chaotic is an understatement. To say it was highly charged is like saying a candle is the same as a spotlight. Represented by the children, you may notice they are all scrawny, is the deprivation, squalor and hunger that surrounds them. In stark contrast, you will notice my mother, glass of 
in hand, with a cigarette in the other, and lots of wine in the background to show her disregard for our upbringing. Fit and healthy, meat on her bones, compared to our skeletal frames. Even the dog was fed better; incidentally by me. We often shared a bowl of dried cereal, that's if there was any left. My eldest sister was on hand to look after herself. Please discuss...