Begging Naked

Elise saw energy and life in the neon lights of New York's sex district. And though it may not be everyone's pretty picture, Elise was never happier than in this cramped, converted airshaft, surrounded by vivid paintings of her life as a stripper and a prostitute. Soon she would find herself undesirable, half-mad, and plunged into homelessness.

On the boat to Manhattan, watching the island of opportunity draw ever nearer, a fifteen year old Elise already knows how to put a brave face on things. "After your father looks you in the face and says he's going to kill you, nothing can scare you". She styled herself after the 'happy hooker' and used her earnings to put herself through art school. The paintings of her first exhibition were all straight from the strip show, and the message was an affront: "I enjoy dancing, I enjoy being erotic".

But eventually, those sensual portraits of strippers who "went mad", or "joined a commune", turn into grotesque imaginings. Stick-thin, and so addicted to heroin that her "teeth are about to come out", an older Elise struggles to make a living as a stripper. The light in her eyes gets dimmer, her jokes are fewer: her art is the outpouring of frenzied conspiracy theories, which she calls "good paranoia. Because everyone is out to destroy". Then the Mayor of New York turns the sex district into a deserted fairground.

"I just need my cat, and my jacket!", Elise cries as she's forced out of the door of her former home. She never thought she'd end up shivering in doorways and living in Central Park. Yet she eats at soup kitchens, and jokes about the joy of "getting new socks on Tuesdays". Though she still believes the government is observing her, her art rolls over the fresh, green vistas of Central Park. "Every time I think it's all meaningless, something tells me: 'Elise, this is part of your art experience'".