As a kid, I thought about becoming an artist or a mad scientist, not because I’m smart, but because my room was always so messy, like it’s the main ingredient for either one of those people, and as if there is such a disability that exists, I truly have issues with organising physical objects around me (I can show you my artwork inventory spreadsheet and you will want to paid for a template). I might have some symptoms of ADHD, unable to follow timetables and schedules for regular routines that I have arranged for myself.

So at this point, I have fully given up on improving or changing since that’s just impossible. Instead, I am going to utilise my organised chaos and turn it into art. (Mind you 90% of the time I can find things amongst the mess I made).

Not inspired by Tracey Emin’s My Bed (1998), coincidentally also having a bunch of mess on a blue mat on the right side of my bed lol, I did not look at these clutters created while I was framing one or two of my etchings for an exhibition, and thought, “That’s art!”

No, what I actually thought was “Take this, Tracey Emin!” (hence the working title) and also “Why has it become like this…I will start to put them back, but first let me take a reference photo because the colours look kinda nice.”

I am proud of my clutter, despite also getting frustrated by it (how is clutter uncountable? What if you have it in more than one place in a room?) from time to time. They (Clutter has changed their pronoun) are quite hard to draw or paint because they are irregular arrays of tiny items, but I might enjoy it like solving a puzzle and enjoy it as my take of/source of inspo for maximalism.

So stay tuned for more hot mess! x