Faustina at the crossroads

How about a punk sculptor-cum-performance artist on the cusp of revolution/revelation who wants to sure things up? She’s read Marlowe and Goethe, Faust on his quest for all knowledge, power and earthly pleasure – who’d blame him for trying. She’s tickled, too, by the myth of Robert Johnson bargaining himself the blues through a backhand deal at the intersection of routes 49 and 61. Her work still only doing the small-fry rounds, the plan percolates until the time feels right: she daubs herself in day-glow body paint and takes to her local Catholic church with a cylinder of kerosene and a blow torch. Lucifer appears in his usual choke of sulphur and grins, alright little lady, you’ve got my attention. His terms are clear and fair and she signs on the line, says she’ll see him when she’s dead. Everything is hers: burst after burst of inspiration, artworks that shatter expectations, redefine form. She travels the world, storms the Venice Biennale, exhibits at the Guggenheim, Tate, Pompidou – you name it, parties with the grimy glitterati in LA, Madrid, São Paulo, breaks a Sotheby’s sale record and dazzles the fawning curators and collectors at every chandeliered benefit dinner. She attains all the fame and worship she craved, becomes the artist of her generation. And there’s no tragic remorse or pleading, no finger-wagging deus ex machina out batting for her moral salvation. Hold the cocaine cardiac arrest, slow suffocation, pox, plague, consumption. She won’t get her due till she’s lived a long life, got to really relish it, witnessed her name in the annals and known her work would be shown down and down the line. Then she’ll go to hell in a handcart and that’s the end of it.

Anna D’Alton is from Mullingar in the midlands of Ireland and lives in London. In 2020 she completed a Master’s in World Literature at the University of Warwick with a dissertation on Caribbean writing. Her poems have appeared in journals in Ireland, the US and elsewhere including Abridged, Banshee, American Chordata, The Pickled Body and Superpresent. Twitter: @anna_dalt.