Intimate diary 1977

Maria Lai made this book object, Intimate Diary, at an unknown date, using thread and paper. The pages are filled with rhythmic dark lines which look like writing, but the words are absent and replaced by a different kind of mark making, one which makes you think about language as something material. The pages are held open and attached to a spill of dark thread that looks like a mass of black hair. This element brings an emotional charge to the piece, as if something personal and painful is being released. Lai's work can be seen as an ongoing conversation with artists such as Louise Bourgeois, who also transformed fabric and thread into powerful expressions of personal experience. This work doesn’t offer any easy answers, but instead invites us to reflect on the power of art to express what cannot be put into words.