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PAINTING A PANDEMIC
My "Hero Series" was created during the height of the pandemic. These are REAL first responders from across the United States and these images were painted from selfies that they took after working 12-to-24-hour shifts and then sent to me via email
Each first responder received a free print of the work to keep as a reminder of their 2020 Pandemic year and for their help in allowing me to interview and portray them.
The words and images were cut out by hand by me from media coverage of the pandemic but are the direct thoughts, fears, worries, hopes and memories of the person I was capturing based on interviews and ideas they themselves asked to have included in the work.
I captured a Nurse at the start of the pandemic struggling with lack of PPE and the dangers of caring for her elderly mother and young children.
I captured a physician struggling with the false information being spread through the media and by our own president.
I captured a hospital administrator that was sleeping in her car so as not to take the disease home to her family and so she could be there to handle emergencies day and night as needed.
I captured an ambulance worker struggling with the lack of hospital beds and the never-ending calls for help. Stuck in his own prison of PPE, unable to drink or eat as he sat with patients inside his ambulance waiting for a place to take them to.
I captured a nurse from El Paso that simply made an emotional plea for help on her personal Facebook page and ended up at the center of a huge controversy about how patients in El Paso were being cared for. Her PTSD from the sound of the Code Blue Siren still sticks with her today.
I captured a traveling nurse, who was in New York during the first outbreak and had seen over 200 patient deaths at the time of the painting.
At the end of the year 2020 I also decided to paint an UNKNOWN SOLDIER as tribute to the number of First Responders that lost their own lives to Covid-19..
