Fabulous portraits of people with chronic illnesses

[sonia]

Kyrianna.art Portraits via house_wren.

Portraits of people in watercolors, overlaid with plants or structures that symbolize their illnesses. I love the title page portrait of a sitting woman with her limbs emerging from a much smaller decrepit house. Each portrait has its own page describing the person's illnesses and why they chose the symbols to represent them. Beautiful and powerful.

Comments

[muccamukk]

Oh wow. Those are incredible!

[julian]

Wow, interesting. (And good art.)

[sonia]

Yes!

[sonia]

Agreed!

[silveradept]

I can't deny the skill of the portraiture there, but I found most of those images to be moving more toward the terrifying and the grotesque, rather than anything else. If that's what was intended, then it is extremely well-executed. If it was supposed to be something more uplifting or otherwise, it didn't work for me, but maybe it will for others.

[sonia]

I can see why you say that. There's definitely body horror at the literal level! My interpretation of the artist's intent was to express what it's like to have one or more chronic illnesses, so I'm seeing the vines, bugs, etc. as more symbolic. And having a chronic illness can be terrifying and grotesque too.

[silveradept]

Symbolic and rather viscerally rendered, so as to make it fairly clear what it's like to have the chronic illness to that person.

Oh these are

[jesse_the_k]

outstanding. I feel so seen.

Have I squeed at you re: Riva Lehrer? https://www.rivalehrerart.com Her memoir of documenting disabled people in oils, GOLEM GIRL is great--has a bunch of pics, as does the audiobook in a supplemental PDF.

Another artist I like is Mallory Kay Nelson. Her Facebook has previews of some of her work; most of it's behind a low Patreon paywall.

I love how the artist

[jesse_the_k]

makes “invisible” impairments concrete–with a wide collection of invading elements including zebra mussels and insects and rocks and mushrooms and ....

Re: Oh these are

[sonia]

Thanks for the recs! I placed a hold on Golem Girl at the library, and enjoyed looking at Mallory Kay Nelson's art. <3

Re: I love how the artist

[sonia]

That's a good point, that the artist is making invisible illnesses visible. I hadn't put that together, but it feels like a crucial part of it now that you say it.