Literature

"This is one of my favourite paintings for far too many reasons. One of the very few self-portraits. As the title suggests, it emerges from a manifestation of an event. After moving into another home, dislocation consumed my mind and body once again; an argument ensued; I entered the shower, and an accident happened. I lay there under scalding hot water. No one to help. I survived. As society demanded, I fulfilled my obligations despite the unceasing pain of fractured ribs and third-degree burns. I was reminded of my friend Sean Scully's "Landline paintings" -- his will to paint the sky, the sea, the horizon coming together at this epic scale after, and did so "sideways" during a debilitating back injury. He turned injury into beauty. I resolved to fashion an image. To stage a ballet of how the interior in my body felt as the rush of pain felt like blood gushing through me constantly -- I truly have never felt the same in my body ever since. With one brush and three carefully chosen oil colours, I painted standing, steadying on a crutch in a slow dance to the sound of an A capella choir for 16 hours. A year later, I revisited the image-the blessed child emerged. Will the shape of my body ever return? That sense of anxiety is also a subtle reference to Edvard Munch's 'The Scream', which snakes in and out of time--in and out of step with our conscious mind, sometimes controlling us, at other times, liberating us to take risks though we might never dare." —Omar Kholeif