Sick Party by Katrina Craig

Craig’s paintings on textile explore invisible illness and the ongoing pressure to perform ‘wellness’ in everyday life, while feeling anything but well. The figures in Sick Party are arranged clumsily to resemble a human form, limbs and necks stretched, knotted, and tangled. The smile and eyes are hollow, a facade to hide within.

The performance of wellness initially served as a way to escape from bodily experiences that slowly transitioned into an amorphous pressure. When the grueling performance ended, space was made to listen to the subtle somatic language of the body and nervous system, reconnecting me with my intuition and ability to accept care from others.