Representations in Visual Art
Frida Kahlo suffered from a variety of health conditions throughout her life, and in fact, she learned to paint while in recovery from a streetcar accident that exacerbated her preexisting struggles. "The Broken Column" was created while Kahlo was in recovery from a surgery meant to alleviate the chronic pain in her spine and right leg. What especially strikes me about this painting (and why I chose to include it in this exhibit) is the way Kahlo quite literally cuts herself open in an attempt to communicate her experiences. There is no question about whether or not the art is meant to reflect the artist's life; it is, perhaps, the most technically autobiographical of any of the items in this exhibit. Alongside that, I believe that the inclusion of artificial elements like the column, the nails, and the brace as being part of and/or intrusions on the physical body all serve to elicit a sensational response from the viewer, to great effect.
Lynn Hershman Leeson experienced a difficult pregnancy in 1965, during which time she went into heart failure due to complications with the chronic condition cardiomyopathy. Naturally, she spent a lot of time in medical care because of this, and x-rays were part of this care. The x-ray is a common topic of exploration in her work, presumably because of this experience. I went with this specific painting of hers not only for the way it plays with the representation of the human body, but also for the way it subverts the image of the x-ray through its use of color. X-rays are black and white, but here, the body and background are black and white, and the images revealed by the x-ray (and, of course, the bathing cap) are in color.
Intra-Venus was an exhibit created by Hannah Wilke in the years leading up to her death from lymphoma, a form of cancer, in 1993. It is full of many truly haunting pieces that could have been included in this exhibit. I chose "Brushstrokes #6" specifically because of the way it uses a piece of the human body as a drawing utencil. Hair loss from chemotherapy is, at this point, a notorious side-effect of cancer treatment, and this piece draws on that association. What exactly it documents, or is meant to document, I have not yet decided; perhaps the visual progression of Wilke's illness, perhaps a creative coping strategy, perhaps something I have not considered. Whatever it documents, I find that it (like the other images in this exhibit) carries an emotional weight that is difficult to ignore.
It was difficult to find much information on Mamie Holst and her "Landscape Before Dying" series. Because of this, I am unsure of a lot of the circumstances under which it was made, and am also unsure whether it continues to be made today. What I have pieced together is that Holst's Chronic Fatigue and Immune Dysfunction Syndrome makes many aspects of her life, including thought, difficult, and this series seems to be a way for her to think on canvas. I encourage you to read some of Holst's statements for yourself by clicking on the relation links in the item description. I was inclined to include a selection of the paintings in this series despite my relative lack of information about it because, as abstract representations of day-to-day life with a chronic condition, they are quite striking. I feel as though they invite much reflection on pain, life, and mortality.
