Nin

Nin told me a story as we made an ‘identity’ book A person with golden hair, a soldier in a red uniform with gold buttons. It turns out a Queens’ guard. Nin was in love with another resident, perhaps mistaking her for his wife. He was embarrassed by the language of other residents around him telling me ‘the language of this place is not good’. He thanked me for making my drawings. Nin’s image is made from a dress uniform jacket, the image surrounded by thousands of pieces of rag cotton from my studio. As I worked I found the rags appeared as the colour of bruises, at times so bright as individual marks but when seen together they take on a greyish hue. Both sides of the piece read differently and so inform the way we have framed it. I painted the silver military buttons with gold to ensure the reference to the Queen’s guard. My initial drawing was made on the first day he was walking after breaking his hip.