'In Lacanian psychoanalytic theory, lack is not understood as deficit, but as a sense of absence established in childhood that becomes the root of desire; for we cannot desire if we do not have a sense of an emptiness waiting to be fulfilled. Conceived of as a sort of metaphysical hole, lack is a function of separation from the primary carer, and for Lacan it plays a key role in the formation of a person’s subjecthood, their sense of themselves in the world.

“The real for Lacan is what cannot be represented, reflected in the mirror image, known or symbolized. When something of the order of the real does become known, this knowledge is manifested as a loss of a body part or fragment.” (Biberman and Zisser – Art, Death and Lacanian Psychoanalysis, p. 74) – or in other words, a lack.

This painting arose from a recurring anxiety dream, in which my body is filled with tiny holes; a banal scene in which my body disintegrates, beyond acknowledgement or remedy. Lack not as a single hole, but as a spongiform surface. In this painting the holes become eyes, a topological gaze looking out from the entire surface of a body; something pushing back out into the world. Not quite a lack transfigured, but a lack become bearable, become able to meet the gaze of the other.'

- Helen Johnson, October 2023