nrvs

The bathroom in my new flat has a couple of pretty interesting characteristics: the medicine cabinet has a mirror on the outside of its little door allowing me to ensure facial cleanliness before venturing out. The geyser looms disconcertingly over the bath, balanced on a single iron bar bolted into the wall. And one of the tiles above the basin has a watercolour rendering of a confused lion.

Here he is:

This is what I undress in front of at least once a day.

What does he want from me? I have spent a significant amount of time speculating and I still can’t decide whether his (surprisingly complex) facial expression is one of an animal attempting to smile for the first time or one of an animal suppressing a violent compulsion. This man-faced lion either wants to bum 2-minute noodles from me or dine on my blood.

Fortunately he’s a painting and is capable of neither. Which raises an issue even more disturbing than the  insanity radiating asymmetrically from his eyes. Some semi-artistic erstwhile inhabitant of my flat was frenzied enough in his moment of inspiration to commit this image to a goddamn bathroom tile! For once the term ‘WHAT THE FUCK’ doesn’t quite cover my bewilderment.

Understandably, I’m now concerned that my bathroom is sentient and has some arcane power which compels the long-term resident to commit random vignettes from nature to his tiles to aid him in some dark purpose. But this seems unlikely.

I’ll leave you with a somewhat less disturbing effort, possibly created by me, which I found above the bath this morning. It is of a bored fish.

The fish has a far less ambiguous facial expression. This is how I like the subjects in my bathroom tile art.