Windowless Bathroom
Windowless Bathroom
watercolor, gum arabic, and black gesso on paper
39" x 52"
2012

An otherwise windowless bathroom is surprisingly well-lit by a single skylight, dirty on all sides from neglect. Tall stacks of Newsweek, The American Journal of Psychiatry and National Geographic overflow from the peach colored bathtub - its plastic shower curtain crumpled and tucked up between the rod and ceiling. The wall-to-wall burgundy carpet is a depository for empty cardboard tubes, discarded lint roller sheets, thick yellow fingernail clippings, razorblades, white clumps of dog hair, plastic prescription bottle caps, yards of used dental floss, crumpled tissues, and a lone black sock. The double sink vanity is stuccoed with bits of black and grey whisker hair suspended in dollops of dried shaving cream. At the rim of each sink an orbiting collection of burn marks have been left from the lit end of cigarettes smoked, sputtered and extinguished. A neat row of six empty Diet Coke cans crowd the back of the toilet tank.