Tee Corinne and the Artistic Merits of Having Your Heart Broken

“Breaking up has never come easily for me, and the memories are those wrenchings are like waking nightmares."

Last month, I went to see a wonderful Tee Corinne exhibit in Los Angeles that is open through the new year. Perhaps most famous for her Cunt Coloring book and erotic imagery, I was thrilled to find that “A Forest Fire Between Us” included a wide range of photography and ephemera from Tee’s multi-faceted career.

Much of the work in the show comes from her book Yantras of Womanlove, created after Corinne experienced “devastating heartbreak.”

“It became like a lover for me through one of the most difficult winters I had known as an adult – sustaining me and giving me a reason to go on,” Corinne said. She began to have “waking dreams” about the book and started there.

all images by Tee Corinne

I was still in love when I went to see Tee’s show, and now, in a season of my own heartbreak, I am looking to her as a roadmap. Charlotte Flint’s book accompanying the exhibit gave me the chance to revisit the photographs of women suckling each other’s elbow nooks, affixing lips, engulfing limbs. The polarized kaleidoscopic photocollages of interlocked body parts remind me of Louise Bourgeois’ “The Couple,” a pair of aluminum figures so tangled they become one figure, heavy and hanging by a string.