When we talk about mental health at all, it’s often with the phrase “sank into a depression,” as though the disease were an ocean. The condition touches ideas we associate with the sea: isolation, pressure, darkness, becoming a lost soul. It’s a naturally occurring metaphor.
It’s all the more impressive, then, when an artist does something new, surprising and emotionally complex with the concept, as Niki Frankenstein has with “From the Depths,” currently on view at the S.P.A.C.E. Gallery in Burlington. The exhibition is almost a solo show. Frankenstein’s sculptures and installation are the main act, with paintings by her husband, Jim DuVal, and Barre artist Dierdra Tara Michelle as a kind of backing band.
The show’s titular installation is a 1970s-era child’s bed, set at an angle from a corner of the gallery. It is bright green and encrusted with shells, pearls and rhinestones, as though it were a coral reef sprouting sparkly barnacles. A flowing, seaweedy crocheted afghan, also embedded with gems, unfurls across its surface and onto the floor. Spangles creep from the corners of a well-indented pillow and green sheets and decorate a hospital gown and dining tray left on the bed.
Nearby, two additional sculptures made from some of the same materials add to the scene. “Home Movie” looks like a Super 8 projector, likewise encrusted in straggly, kelp-like yarn, growing organically from a swampy bed of cattails and projecting a ’70s-style home movie onto the wall. “Lost & Found” is a half-deflated life preserver, mildewed with sparkles, washed up in a snarl of driftwood, yarn and netting. DuVal’s dark, oceanic paintings and a splash of blue light further set the underwater scene.
Frankenstein, 53, said the work comes from a deeply personal experience overcoming her challenges with depression. “I had a very traumatic childhood,” she said. “I think that a lot of times when people go through that, they will do anything to not confront it.”
For her, that meant always working two jobs, having three kids, striving for perfection and blaming herself for not devoting time to her art while doing those things. She put tremendous pressure on herself, she said, and when her job in health care management became increasingly stressful in 2019, “everything kind of fell apart,” leading her to attempt suicide.
Following Frankenstein’s hospitalization, her husband stepped up to support her, and she has been able to focus on recovery and on making art. She has been working on this installation for more than a year, she said, drawing on research about mental health as well as her own family history and childhood — the home movie is of her and was posted online by a sibling she hasn’t seen in decades.
Frankenstein’s dad was in the military, and she grew up in Hawaii, Guam and Bermuda — her childhood bedroom overlooked the Sargasso Sea. She used to paint seashells and bury them as treasure for others to find.
That magical, innocent quality truly comes through in the work, where such sparkly treasures abound. The bed itself, and the trappings of depression and hospitalization, have been so thoroughly overtaken by Frankenstein’s baroque decoration that the sculpture conveys buoyancy and growth as much as downward pressure. If this is an underwater hospital ward, it’s the one where the Little Mermaid has gone to recover her voice.
Frankenstein wants the work to undo stigma and convey that there is a path forward from even the worst crisis. “Art, for me, has been so healing,” she said. “I’m just excited to keep going.”
If you or someone you know is thinking about suicide, dial 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or text VT to 741741 for the Crisis Text Line. Trained counselors are available 24-7.
This article appears in The Connections Issue.
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