The All New Magic Tortoise
Dianne Reading

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Dianne Reading

2005 (maybe) Oil/Alkyd and collage on specimen drawer Caroline has this one. It wasn’t quite finished when i took this. I have done more on the collage-y background stuff. Dianne decided to use the time that she spent modelling. She might as well be reading, and this is good: someone doing something is more interesting than someone not doing anything. I can't remember what she was actually reading, but if I could I'd tell you. I am dyslexic. I don't know if Dianne is (1 in 10 people are, I'm told), but I decided to try to put my experience of reading into the background. you can't really see it at this resolution, but I have taken pieces of text and cut them diagonally and reconnecting them so that the end of each line is grafted onto the beginning of another to simulate my inability to read along a line of text in the correct order. I have then scattered collaged and painted images around and on top of the text to simulate my constant distracting thoughts. I hope this gives a "normal" person something like my experience of failing to take in written information. I guess there's no way of telling how similar it is.

Published 09 Nov 2021