I came back from New York determined not to get the PEBs — for anyone not in the art world and unfamiliar with the term, PEB stands for Post Exhibition Blues.
It sounds silly, pretentious and pitiful but it’s not. It’s a serious problem artists have.
Sometimes working for years on a body of work, surrounded by the same paintings every day, building them up and getting to know them like a family.
Each painting, the longer it stays around defining its own personality. Favourites changing from day to day, a constant conversation between the artist and the work.
Then boom, it’s all gone, it’s hanging on the walls of a gallery, living its own life. Going out into the greater world on a never-ending longer journey than my own.
There is always an inevitable crash after a show. A huge void that has to be filled.
After my show at White Cube Bermondsey in 2019, I felt bereft to the point of suicidal.
I know it sounds pathetic but my soul felt like it was empty. Like every last bit of love and guts had been squeezed out of me on to the canvas and I was left standing alone. Stripped of everything, totally exposed.
The worst thing is the insane amount of adulation, then nothing.
After the 2019 Bermondsey show, I’d planned a getaway from the after-show depression. An escape to Egypt. I love all things Egyptian. My great grandfather was from Nubia, it gives me a stronger interest more than just a romantic touristic desire to see things. It just fascinates me that my ancestors lived by the Nile and built out of sandstone.
Egypt isn’t Nubia but Egypt is the closest I can get.
This week I’ve been feeling very unwell, a really bad urinary infection that infects fucking everything, the way I walk, think, double up in pain, lose all sense of focus and worse of all I get low and I feel like I smell. I smell like the worst kind of public loo at a Fifties train station.
I feel like the stench of piss saturates every element of my personality.
I’m living with part of me that should be on the inside on the outside. Sometimes it gets too much for me, carrying a giant bag of piss around especially when I have to go out, present myself to the world with confidence.
Two nights ago, I waddled through the giant doors of the British Museum.
I stood in the great Egyptian Hall feeling excited and alive and for a moment not in pain. I felt like I was flying from one world to the next.
I am so proud and honoured to become a Trustee of the British Museum.
The first female to represent the Royal Academy in 270 years, and most probably the first Nubian ever.
As we say at the Royal Academy, Honour and Glory to the next exhibition.
As soon as I got back from America. I rushed straight back to Margate to curate a mid-year show of works by the TEARS Tracey Emin Artist Residency.
It was brilliant to be looking, thinking, breathing art. Working with other people to create something never seen before.
It’s good to feel good and know that I’m doing the right thing.
I can honestly say today I am happy.
I’m in pain but I’m in love with life, with art and I feel very much loved and appreciated back.
I’m in pain but I’m in love with life, with art and I feel very much loved and appreciated back.
