Platform was a group show in The Oonagh Young Gallery, Dublin, curated by Stef Van Bellingen (in association with WARP) in April 2015. 

The show also included works by both visiting Belgian artists and other Irish artists - Karina Beumer, Eleanor Duffin, Maria McKinney, Joel Shuurmans, Jonas Vansteenkiste and Richard Forrest. 

Karina Beumer included a painting in the show, titled 'abused painting' which she invited me to 'interview'. 

This developed into a text titled Something is Missing, which was then performed on the opening of the show as a monologue. The text is an imagined stream of consciousness by the painting as a musing on its place in the show, remarks on the other works, insecurity on its status as an art object as well as its desire to be looked at. The character of the painting was also inspired by both literary and real Dublin street characters from the local area, and is of a somewhat confrontational personality. The text was also available to take away for the duration of the show. 

Further information on the show can be found  here 

'Something is Missing'
Suzanne Walsch and Karina Beumer
Performance: Suzanne Walsch and 'Untitled' (Abused Painting ((oil on canvas, 24 cm x 18 cm, 2014) by Karina Beumer))) on the sculpture stage of Richard Forrest. During the exhibition PLAT-FORM "the performative, the spectacle and ... accepted norms"
April 10th, 2015 Oonagh Young Gallery, Dublin (IE)

This street suffers from a lack of sunlight, did you ever notice that?

It's like all the rain and piss and shadows stay here eternally.

Half-finished fag butts with their stuffing hanging out.

Something is missing.

You might think I'm sore, and in a way you'd be right. Suppose you think I don't even belong here. And like I wouldn't even care.

But we're not immune to being damaged.

I'm looking at you. Yea.

I know I'm marred. Don't think I don't know it, but still, I'll take my chances. But it's not all I am.

You know I'd like to move on but it's not possible so I suppose I'll stay put.
You'll come and see me though won't you? I don't feel myself today.

I'm writing this all down like you asked, but I've doctored it to hide the truth of my lust for you.

I just want you, I want more than you, I want your looks on my face. I want to see what you've glimpsed through your eyes, eyes like holes full of want.

Am I over-familiar? Yea, sorry (not sorry).

I almost heard what I wanted her to say. She was waiting around, she twisted her hair when she was looking at me, isn't that one of the signs? I don't mind though, I'm casting my net far and wide.

Later I'll be here alone in the dark, I don't like feeling trapped, looking at the sickly glow of the orange streetlights. Place probably falling down around me.

Will

you

be

thinking

about

me?

The air outside thick and cold on the black shuttered street, damp funnel of congestion, like the little pipes in your lungs drawing in air as you pause to consider what I'm saying.

It's my want that drives you away, I'm a vacuum and nature abhors me that's for sure.

Piss in the drains from last night, hand on the glass to steady yourself, mind how you go now.

Fecking kids, yea you think I'm funny?

I'm not known yet, but do you know what, who cares. Time enough for all that. I'm not into all that anyways.

Cropped top on, yea. More of that.

Really I'm incomplete but don't put that in words, I don't feel...right. I feel like I wasn't finished like others. Like I'm not what I should be. Bit rough around the edges, yea? I feel you looking at me, not in the way I want. Or else you quickly look somewhere else. Like I care!

And the others? She's a bit prickly. And that flashy git taking up the whole room, yea? Wipe your feet on the way out.

I hear them laughing, 'too small'. Yea, feck off.

I'd watch my back if I were you.

Am I just your reflection?

The truth has been obscured if I'm honest. I'm not even affected though, ok? When I'm gone, just be kind yea?