In both instances, I felt something was
missing. In the case of the railway tunnel, I placed a dead tree over a gate
located at the tunnel mouth. In the case of the tumbledown barn, I placed a
plank over the doorway.
I experienced a ‘click’ in my head after
adding these elements.
Symbols in the Landscape
During both summers, I suffered terrible depression,
intrusive thoughts and disturbed nights. I was also working on a novel, The Lessons (originally titled The Upstairs Room). A burning fantasy
world consumed my days fueling my story. The central character was a thug
called Aidan. I thought he was a childhood familiar.
Whilst painting at the barn, I suffered agonizing
period pains for 3 months in a row. This is unusual for me. No period pain was
reported whilst I was painting at the railway bridge, as I was on the pill. The
pill is known to curtail period pain.
For 30 years, my oil paintings remained in
the garage and sadly sustained some water damage. I seldom thought of them.
In 2016, I discovered I had been raped as a
toddler by an uncle who lived with us in 1968. The full story is given in a 10-part article.
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| Disturbed symbols of the tunnel, bridge and gate |
My terrible unearthing caused me to examine my novels,
diaries and artwork. I am horrified to find rape symbols within my landscape paintings. The drawings of the dead tree and the distorted gate appear to enter
the tunnel. I completed these drawings in the autumn of 1985 and would produce charcoal drawings from them.
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| The symbol of the tree and tunnel |
Secret Messages from my Toddlerhood
See also my painting of the dead tree. Notice
the branches straddling the gate. Notice also my placing of the dead tree at the
mouth of the tunnel. I have provided a reconstruction of the location of the
dead tree in relation to the tunnel. I often sat beneath that tunnel sketching
the dead tree.
A year later, I would give the same treatment to
the doorway of a barn. I placed a large plank at the doorway. I
believed I was simply improving the composition by breaking up the sky. I suffered crippling period
pain, depression and grief throughout that summer whilst painting there.
I blamed these sensations upon the wrong
things. The grief was in fact due to the loss of my childhood. The period
pain is due to subconscious reminders of the sensation of rape. How astonishing I would
experience such symptoms of PTSD due to my creation of a rape symbol in the
landscape!
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| Plank at the Doorway of an old barn |
On 23 November 1986, I would hang a painting of the
barn door and plank in my bedroom. That night in my diary, I report of
a horrid dream. I also experience a nasty sensation of falling asleep with
noises in my head. At this time, I was reading Colleen McCullough’s The Thornbirds. Mary Carson’s dead body plagued with flies disturbed me. I was also tormented by the face-hugger
in Aliens which I watched that
summer. This is because my uncle routinely suffocated me in my bedroom before
assaulting me. Certain imagery triggered me.
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| Painting of the barn hung in my bedroom spurring troubled nights |
Truth about My Childhood
What I hadn’t realized was that I had produced
other oil paintings depicting rape, prior to these landscape paintings. The
subject matter is still life (covered in a
separate article). All these paintings are like pieces to a jigsaw. In isolation they
make no sense, but together, a pattern emerges.
The devastation of this unearthing is
indescribable. My life has been torn apart and the foundations of my life are
destroyed. Worse, I discover that my fictional character Aidan of my novel The Lessons was in fact sourced from my
uncle. My childhood familiar wore a face based upon a rapist. He was not a childhood familiar at
all.
Once the dust settles, I dare to revisit the
sites of my alfresco oil paintings.
What I find at the railway tunnel and the barn 3 decades later is unsettling
and unexpected.
Visit to the Derelict Barn 31 Years Later
Visit to the Derelict Barn 31 Years Later
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