The Fall Project - Artist’s Talk and Q&A

About

We have all experienced at some time or other, how a sudden traumatic event such as an accident, a loss, or the unexpected striking of an illness, appear to stop the inexorability of time and create a vacuum for reflection and self-analysis. People run around, sticking to their daily routine, not stopping for a minute to take a different course of action that may potentially change their life as that is a threat to their stability.  

In my project, I introduce a series of random people from different walks of life who after a fall of no major consequences find themselves briefly suspended in time. Their fall may be caused by a slight distraction, by rushing around or other mundane circumstance, but the sudden shock to their system this causes, and consequent interruption of routine activity, prompt these individuals to reassess matters and might even reveal deeper truths about their own lives.

The peculiarity is that I portray no trace of surprise in their face.  These people accept their impotence against life events, their inner world being tormented by bigger preoccupations. Their actual physical fall is just a symptom, a manifestation of a more important fall, perhaps a failure in their existence, their hopes and dreams.  Interrupted in their daily work or leisure, they are in no hurry to get up and go on.  They remain suspended in their thoughts, taking their time to confront for once, their existential burden.

This project also takes inspiration from my real-life encounters.  The nurse, for example, is a real nurse. I thought of painting her when she told me about the difficulties of coping with her massive workload during her long, stressful shifts in A&E. Moreover she works in the Resuscitation Room, dealing daily with shattered life and death.   The girl with a crutch used to pose for me as a model.  She had an accident and is now forced to walk with a crutch, having to deal with constant pain. One day she told me that once she ran as fast as her crutch would allow and managed to get on the train just before the door shut.  She did not fall that time, but I chose to paint her fall to show the way she must feel, forced by circumstances to review her life from a completely new,  limited perspective.

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Michele del Campo, London, October 2015