The Last Kiss and Home
Julia Gatie
The Last Kiss and Home are both incidental collections of work which focus on how difficult it is remove oneself emotionally and physically from an abusive relationship. The work is based on a personal experience in a relationship which after two years turned violent.
The Last Kiss is a large-scale wall-based montage of collected last kisses which have been reproduced using darkroom techniques. The morning I decided to leave I put my make up on as usual, blotted my lips and thought to myself, “This is the last kiss”. I put the blotted tissue in an envelope as a reminder to myself that by the end of the day I would no longer be there. Approximately three years later and by the time the relationship ended I had collected in a box around 400 last kisses. The Last Kiss is intended to create an understanding of the timescale involved from the decision to leave an abusive relationship to its end.
Installation shot of The Last Kiss in situ at Scarborough Art Gallery, 2006
The series Home represents the ups and downs of being in such a situation. When exactly it started, I don’t know, like an ever-increasing circle it appeared seamless with no beginning and no end. I was trapped. Trapped and torn—by the situation itself, my own emotions, beliefs, and the perception of others. My focus shifted continuously as I tried to glean some sense from what was happening around me and why I was constantly in flux.
The domestic environment and emotional turmoil acts as a prison, making the person overshadowed by events and unpredictable outcomes. Also represented is the ever-changing focus of the dilemma, as opinions and feelings are constantly in flux creating a hidden battle with the occurring events and its social stigma.
For something that felt so shameful and isolating at the time, I am now aware that what happened to me affects many. Statistics show that around one in four women and one in six men suffer from domestic abuse at some point in their lives. In the UK, the police receive a domestic violence call every thirty seconds, two women are killed by a current or former partner every week, and thirty women a day attempt suicide to escape the abuse.
See more of Julia’s work here.
The Last Kiss, a detail of one of the 'kisses'.
My Miss Muffet, From the series Home
Light, From the series Home
Curtains, From the series Home