‘The drawing is based on Pier Angeli who comitted suicide (age 39) from an overdose of barbituates, having failed 4 previous suicide attempts. At 22 she was deeply in love with James Dean but her mother + MGM Studios forbade the relationship. She married someone else and legend has it that Dean stood outside the church and revved his motorcycle throughout the ceremony.

Just before her suicide she wrote to a friend "I'm so afraid to get old...Love is now behind me, love died in a Porsche" 

(referring to the death of James Dean 16 years earlier)

The interior of the drawing is based on the 1948 film "The Snake Pit". The film recounts the tale of a woman who finds herself in an insane asylum and cannot remember how she got there’

This quote from Nina Mae Fowler is from the collaborative project De Anima
www.de-anima.co.uk

Read further writing and essays in response to the subjects and themes relating to the work of Nina Mae Fowler here.