Alarm sounding
13.5 “ x 10.5” mixed media on paper

“The big pink tongue of the dog. The black dog, cave-mouth alive with flies.” L.D. & A.M.P.
13.5 “ x 10.5” mixed media on paper

“Said the girl, and I am not waterproof.” L.D.
13.5 “ x 10.5” mixed media on paper

Bees
13.5 “ x 10.5” mixed media on paper

Studio view of pages on the wall, hanging four high

 
Corinne Duchesne (Burlington, Ontario, Canada)
corinneduchesne.com

Gut’er & Bleed
2013 to present
Mixed media on paper
Original work
150+ pages
13.5″ x10.5″ x2″

This work is domestic the way crazy quilts and home deaths are. The pages developed slowly and in the dark—as if that itch on your back you can never reach grew into a third arm.

It began simply as a doodle around a prep list for my next Monolithic painting but then quickly spread, engulfing my imagination like a swarm of bees. The protagonist, Diq (with umlauts over the “I”), is a genderless being faced with the existential question of how to communicate with its mother, who has lapsed into a coma. Diq begins by awkwardly reading poetry to the mother’s decomposing body, but soon realizes that the ears have closed and the eyes no longer see. The panels then move into a stream of consciousness, drawings and captions cataloging and embroidering internal dialogue. Flat image drawings mix with pop-up pages and abandoned or reclaimed fragments, while characters, symbols, and totem animals writhe or dance across the pages, all morphing and twisting through a memoir of visual addiction and homeless, restless love.

Gut’er & Bleed has sprawled and oozed to over one hundred and fifty pages, but like ichor, this work continues.