Artist Shines a Light on Dark Subject
Brian Sandford | The New Mexican | August 6, 2024
Friends refused to visit Tina Mion when she was growing up in small-town New Jersey, as it was not a well-kept secret that her family’s house previously had served as a mortuary.
“It was not emptied out, even though the place had been closed for a long time,” says the Winslow, Arizona, painter and sculptor. “So there was equipment there including a blood-draining table, curtains that still had blood on them, jars filled with all kinds of weird, creepy things. I was left alone there a lot.”
Mion became familiar, and comfortable, with the concept of death at an early age, and the ending of life has been a theme in her work ever since. Her familiarity with the subject matter helped her create the most striking piece in Departures, her exhibition running through September 7 at Kouri + Corrao Gallery.
That diptych, My Brother’s Suicide, shows a smiling figure hanging by its neck from a tree in one panel, gun in hand. In the second panel, both the figure and the gun are falling, both having succeeded in their missions. The oil-on-linen painting is simple and large, measuring 68 by 38 inches.
Mion’s brother Russell shot and killed himself in 2018, while her mother attempted to kill herself multiple times, Mion says, pointing out that suicide can run in families. She will attend a reception from 5-7 p.m. Friday, August 2, at Kouri + Corrao, and she knows she might encounter attendees emotional about their own experiences with suicide.