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In 2017 Neal's grandparents lost their home to the flood of Hurricane Harvey. The storm flooded their house with seventeen feet of water,  and took with it a lifetime of objects, furniture, photos, and memories. In the days following the storm, Neal's family sorted through the wreckage and pulled out the entire contents of the home soaking wet. This was the second time Neal's grandparents had lost their home in a flood.

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That same year Neal experienced intense suicidality. He began obsessively running as a personal ceremony to will his body to stay alive. When he finally returned home he would sit inside his shower for hours, in a trance like state. 

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In this way water became a realm which guarded the space between life and death. In an interview about the work Neals says that "The water itself came to be a personal symbol of time, that we are pelted with it and assaulted with it and that our lives just keep going and that can feel unbearable sometimes, like God, I just want it to stop and it doesn’t, and eventually, you begin to feel the sense that there is no beginning. There is no end. I’m just in the current of my life and it is something that I will bear."

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                                                                                                //

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Read the accompanying essay here

Read Neal's interview here