Swimming pools have been a part of my work for a very long time. In a swimming class I attended in elementary school, I made a comment that I was tired and wanted to take a break, and the instructor dunked my head under the water. I still remember the scene. The tiles on the pool floor, people's legs, air bubbles coming out of my nose and mouth, and the fear of death. I've been terrified of water ever since, and that trauma shows up in my work in many forms. Swimming pools are a signature subject, often appearing as red, bottomless, or out of water, but always with me at the edge. I'm either teetering on the edge of falling in, diving in from above, or hovering around. There is definitely fear and anxiety, but there is also a strong will to confront it in my mind.
This ties in with the "Fire Escape" series, the belief that this is perhaps the only way out and that if I am brave enough to jump in, the water in the depths will envelop me and take me to another world.
There is a person lying down and a person standing by his side. No, maybe it's not a person, maybe that figure with the glint in its eye is protecting the one lying down, or maybe it's about to push him away, but whatever he chooses, I'm not afraid.