It’s about my mam’s massively subservient nature, and how she expected the same of me. Her dying words were that I must iron my dad’s clothes nicely. “Make sure yer dad has a nice crease in his pants.” His home is a four-hour journey from mine.
Made at my parents’ house during Lockdown, where I took care of my mother in the final eighteen months of her life. I was unable to return to my husband and children for fear of bringing germs to my mam and dad, who had a stroke the week after my arrival.
I accidentally became their carer. It’s the closest to hell my privileged life has ever taken me. I lost my employment, and my mind, into the bargain.
Rarely leaving the house, I had no art materials. The background is one of my mother’s napkins, and the lettering is cut from my father’s handkerchiefs.
I’m making fun of Damien Hirst’s success, and my lack of it. Inspired by his shark sculpture, ‘The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living’. Mam was in her final weeks of life, lying motionless on a hospital bed at home, where I was nursing her. Her death was imminent and inevitable, but seemed impossible.
I carry the guilt of being relieved when she died.
39. Damien Shamien, 2021
Hand-stitched textile
35 x 35cm unframed
Copyright: Alison Aye, 2024.
