Hands deep in pockets, eyes and shoes locked in a firm unwavering gaze, momentary relief followed by some sort of retroactive shame about the social interaction you did not have. After furtively glancing a familiar face at the far end of the cat food, gardening and misc. aisle your shopping trolley has found itself abandoned somewhere between the Friskies™ and the homebrand potting mix. The modestly full vessel has been left squarely in the middle of the thoroughfare like some obscene obstacle between the culprit (whose only crime was that of half-hearted acquaintanceship) and you, the fragile, vulnerable husk of social anxiety. Boo Hoo.
Fear of cursory eye contact, followed by the inevitable pleasantry of small talk and subsequently the brief but accusatory expression of pity coupled with the possibility of repeated running intos during the rest of your shopping endeavor, all but force you to desert your foragings for the day. You have reasoned that the fleeting amicable interaction would serve more of a disservice than the accruement of food, knowing that all you have to return home to is corn flour. And anyway your ability to sleep through bodily allegations of malnourishment has become something of a talent.
This, you imagine, is what being swallowed whole must feel like. Something like sitting in a bath of tepid water, soap scum and dead skin swilling against your over hydrated, over calloused and under nourished body with every thrashing of your arms. Or falling out of bed, strangled in your own month old sweat soaked sheets, getting your limbs caught and trapped between the wall and your mattress, struggling, suffocating, wet.
Your legs are useless, broken paddles, like some pathetic metaphor.
You are crying on the bus ride home. That was a $3.60 round trip just to show the shop clerk the inside of your bag in an attempt to prove that despite the fact that you have just spent half an hour lurching down aisles of sundries and foodstuffs you did not in fact steal anything, not one single can of beans.
Oh fuck, you need toilet paper.
You’ll try again tomorrow.
Private Places for Public Crying is a solo exhibition of recent work by Caity Reynolds. Through installation, expanded painting and assemblage Private Places for Public Crying intends to capture moments of personal deficiency and unmet social expectations. Utilising intimacy and relying on empathetic engagement, the work chronicles the vulnerable, pathetic and unmonumental aspects of human experience, focusing on things that you wouldn’t bother boasting about.
The Laundry Artspace: 3 Ashfield St, East Brisbane
