Extreme Tension (detail), 2007

Limited edition of 100

This image is from a suite of eleven large-scale, mixed media panels titled Extreme Tension (2007), each paired with an excerpt from a text written by Bourgeois at a time she was undergoing intense psychoanalysis. Bourgeois experienced bouts of deep depression throughout her life that almost always manifested as physical pain in her body, including, as she wrote, in her “arms forearms hands fingers.” Although fraught with emotion, this composition of two extended arms could be interpreted as one’s reaching out for connection and stability with another person.