Handsome Lady: I don't want to cure mental illness, I want to live with it

Every day, I am fighting pain, anxiety and fear. The only way to alleviate the pain is through constant creation. So, I followed the path of art, found a way to let myself live.

A bright red short hair, which is the artist's grass-haired sign. Speaking of her, we always think of a giant pumpkin with a dense circle, or a large polka dot on a red-bottomed canvas.

In the documentary "The Grass", she is in a wheelchair, with a round eye open, and the brush in her hand does not stop. It is the daily life of the grass, put their whole heart into the art, flamboyant, hot, imitation to burn themselves to burn up.

At the age of nine, he developed a neurotic audio-visual disorder, was plagued by hallucinations, and the retina was covered with spots, and a dot appeared in the world. So she painted crazy, drawing those illusions that appeared, lingering. She built a net with dots to catch herself in endless falls.

Her works have attracted worldwide attention, and she is also known as one of the top ten avant-garde artists of the 21st century, the Queen of Dot, the Queen of Avant-garde, and the Japanese National Treasure Artist. But she says, "I'm just an obsessive artist." 」

Photo: A photo of "The Grass"

After i was found dead, I was reborn in art.

In 1929, Hessa was born into a traditional family in Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture, Japan. She had a strict mother, with all her focus on the family, and her father often spent time outside the country. At a very young age, her mother had asked her to secretly follow her father, and the experience of witnessing her father's affair with other women caused her to be a big shadow, and even to sexual disgust. Afterwards, her father severely reprimanded her for stalking, and her mother did not give her any attention and comfort, which made her frustrated enough to attempt to jump on the train tracks to find her dead, and then bounced back by the air.

"One day, I looked at the red flower pattern on the tablecloth, and when I looked up, I found the same pattern covering the ceiling, windows and walls, and finally spreading throughout the room, my body and the whole universe. I feel like I'm involved in endless time and space, starting to self-destruct and go to nothing. 」

"I looked up and found that the violets in front of me were all individuals - they had the same expression as people, and then they spoke to me. Suddenly, I was surrounded by glittering things, and a lot of pictures jumped into my eyes. 」

Because of her childhood family experience, which led to an outbreak of illness at the age of nine, she began to develop mental instability and was prone to hallucinations, and she saw violets talking, hearing herself barking like a dog, feeling the dark forces under the pond seduced her, and she told her family that she saw the hallucinations, but no one took it as one thing.

Later, the grass bet all her emotions on the painting, she constantly painted their own illusions, with art to ease her pain and despair.

Photo: A photo of "The Grass"

However, her mother believed that women should follow tradition and embark on a marriage, so she strongly opposed the creation of art. The mother of the grass would take away the work before she had finished painting, which is why the grass creation would be so fast in the future - she feared that her creation would be taken away, and she had to be quick and fast.

To escape her family, she wrote to Georgia O'Keeffe, an American artist known as one of the great swords of 20th century art, in the hope that she would have other development opportunities. O'Keeffe suggested that she develop in the United States, but also warned the grass: "The art world is dominated by men, and it is difficult for women to survive here." 」

The grass was desperate to go to the United States, living in a new York apartment without heating, without any financial help of her, can be said to live in hell, but this did not affect the grass's enthusiasm for art. She spent 15 years on the day and day.

Beyond the pain, into the trauma

Grass creation quickly caught the attention of artists, but in the male-dominated art world, no one has ever been certified, and even repeatedly saw fellow male scouring their own ideas to gain recognition. Hunger and cold and can not find a foothold, making the grass mental illness more serious. In 1965, desperate she leapt down from her apartment.

Attempted suicide. She picked herself up again and threw herself into art.

Later, after six years of psychoanalytic therapy in New York, these treatments prevented her from continuing: "I can't draw anything." Because everything slipped out of my mouth. For the grass, the illusion is an intrusive one, but it is also the source of her creation. As for trauma, she chose to coexist with it.

Photo: A photo of "The Grass"

"Wireless Network" in 1979, 1962's "Accumulation No. 1. ""), 1965's "Infinity Mirror House: The Field" the works of grass-based life are repetitive, dot accumulated into a net, and infinite extension, she let herself melt in the endless, coexistwith with all things.

Photo: A photo of "The Grass"

In these repetitive works, in addition to the polka dots, it also contains.

"I don't like sex, I'm obsessed with sex. 」

When she was young, she saw her father's affair with a woman, making her disgusted with sex and calling herself asexual. The creations of Infinity Mirror House: The Field, Accumulation No. 1, thousand shipping will be associated with the trauma of the past.

In the work "Infinity Mirror House: The Field", the grass shines through the mirror, making thousands of tissues into a huge universe. Dressed in red tights, she walked in, stood in the middle, and then lay up in a room beyond the trauma: "It was like Alice walked into the mirror, and I, in the grass, opened up the world of fantasy and freedom." 」

She says she's going to keep making these, and keep making them until she buryes herself in it, a process she calls self-melting (self-obly.

"I've lived in this world like a wave for a long time. There were countless times when I tried to kill with a knife, but I chose to gather these ideas and get back on my feet. I long for a shining life, I want to live in eternity. 」

Artists must be narcissistic: what I admire most is me

The grass has been plagued by hallucinations all her life, mental illness is her magic, but also her life, she once said: "I do not want to cure my mental illness, I want to use them as my power to create art." 」

Because of her obsession with art, she also has a crazy fascination with herself. Grass has said that as an artist, he does not worship others. Artists can't create without narcissism.

Mr. Grassy responded to Proust's questionnaire in this way:

Who do you most admire?

I.

What qualities do you hate most about yourself?

No. I worship myself.

If you can be born again, who do you want to be?

I.

Perhaps just like the polka dot art, the grass-haired is weaving a little bitterness into a net, wrapping yourself in it, while also catching all the same people as her - you don't need to peel the wound out of your life, you can embrace it, and hold it.

When the world labels mental illness negatively, it never talks about its own mental problems. In an exclusive interview with The New York Times, when asked about personal creation and mental illness, aides said the question was "too sensitive" and she insisted on answering it.

In the grass to accept the dark side of others' eyes, she chooses to face the restrictions, whether it is an internal mental problem or an external male-dominated art circle, she is out of her own way.

She used her life to prove that, even if the body is full of bruises, but also to be infatuated with their own infatuation, life into eternity.