Abstract

In this article I make links between melancholia, creativity and communion with God at a personal level, referencing John’s gospel, ‘God’s house has many rooms’ and ‘The Mansions’, a text written by Theresa of Avila where the ‘mansion’ is an analogy for the space in which God’s omniscient love is realized. My paintings were formed from the day-to-day lived experience of ‘psycheache’ and are a graphic representation of a non-explainable reality. I see in these paintings a transcendent reality for they are the markings I made to express a state-of-being that could not be articulated. During this episode of Depression I painted dark interiors with rambling corridors, flights of steps and doorways leading into rooms empty of people.