Friday, October 23, 2009

Not Again... (Still Life with Painkillers)


Mixed Media on Canvas
h: 11 x w: 14 in
$200.00 + Shipping
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When I was a child my mother was in a car accident which ultimately resulted in her being disabled for life. She spends every moment of every day in unimaginable pain. I have spent most of my life on one psychiatric drug or another and over the past 3 years I have injured my left knee, my lower back and now, about a month ago, my right knee. These injuries are not the bi-product of strenuous or risky activity. They all happened just as I was going about my daily routine. Call it the Walton Effect, human beings are just not designed to be as big as I am. The result of all this a seemingly probable future in which I spend my entire life on a cocktail of psychiatric and pain management medications. I have seen first hand how chronic health problems weigh on people and I have seen how little compassion most people without chronic health have for those who do. This is why I have been painting a series of still lives of pills that I take on a daily basis just to function. Just as the tradition of Gravitas painting sought to address how we take for granted the life force that food and drink provides us I seek to add a third element to the discussion because for me, and millions of other people, pills are as necessary as bread and water are to everyone else.

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