Interruption

This piece depicts the moment illness hits, interrupting our plans, our sense of control, and our busy lives. The boxes in this painting represent order, patterns of functioning, and colourful activity. It calls to mind an aerial view of a city that is pulsing with life. Illness leaves a mark on us that does not disappear. It impairs our patterns of activity and the identity markers we used to define ourselves.

The interruption of illness is not entirely negative, though. It also forces us to look at our patterns and ways of ordering the world and consider how they may be unhealthy in their own right. They may be narrow, controlling, or entrapping, just like boxes can be. They may be driving us to live in ways that are not life-giving or meaningful. The interruption, then, is both the illness that mars our sense of self and as the jolt that invites us to begin again and move towards an alternative sense of well-being.