Piece: Manic Depression by Lady Pink
In Lady Pink’s “Manic Depression”, a teenage graffiti artist (presumably a representation of herself) is hunched over on the floor of a jail cell with a can of spray paint in her hand that is leaking out red paint. On the walls there’s graffiti tags and words written all over and the main one is Lady Pink’s very own tag. There are two other women in the painting. At the museum there was no background story on the painting like there were for other pieces but when I looked up the piece there was an article written on it saying that the other two women in the cell were supposed to be prostitutes. All three of the women are being held in the jail cell.
I was immediately drawn to the piece because it was unlike any of the other pieces in the room. Many of the other pieces consisted of tags and abstract pieces but this piece caught my attention because it felt like she was trying to bring up the issue about the criminalization of graffiti and the ongoing debate about whether or not graffiti is vandalism.
The title of the piece is “Manic Depression”. Being someone who has manic depression I was drawn to the work because of the image and the title itself. The image depicted this girl who was hunched over with her hair covering her face looking defeated. When I read the title I thought it fit the image because she was experiencing the lows that came with her art. Manic depression consists of immense highs in which you’re ecstatic beyond words and then there are the crashing lows of depression that can very well leave you physically hunched over the same way the Lady Pink was in her piece.