#merryn hull

Tehom (the Deep) - Tom Isaacs

‘Cessnock Contemporary’ curated by Merryn Hull PhD. Also pictured Beneathby Lily Stothard.

Photography: Merryn Hull PhD (images 1-3) and Isobel Markus-Dunworth (images 4-6). 

I wrote an artist’s statement for the exhibition catalogue:

Tehom (the Deep) is a way of thinking through my experience of anxiety and depression, and of expressing my desire for healing, whether medical or spiritual. This work draws from religious and spiritual understandings of water as a healing or cleansing element. ‘Tehom’ is a Hebrew word, used in the opening lines of the book of Genesis to refer to the primordial, abyssal waters of creation, shrouded in darkness and waiting for the transformative word of God. This work is also informed by the psychoanalytic theories of the death drive and melancholia, according to which fantasies of death by drowning may be inspired by a desire to return to the encompassing waters of the womb.