Tweet

This is another installment to our Gallery Series. As a reminder, I generally pick something related to palliative medicine and then begin an online hunt to find art work and poetry with this word or phrase in the title.  Hopefully this becomes a stepping point for further thought and exploration.

All art work is copyrighted to the artist (often only a screen name is known), and listed in sequential order at the end. For further Gallery posts, links are provided for convenience at the bottom.

Today's Gallery theme is "Quality of Life", so picked secondary to this phrase's essential part in the definition of palliative care.

The definition of QOL from thefreedictionary.com:
Quality of life (n): Your personal satisfaction (or dissatisfaction) with the cultural or intellectual conditions under which you live (as distinct from material comfort).


"Quality of Life" copyright Harley.


Pain roils within me, without
Despair assails me, and doubt
What is the use of all this striving for survival?
What is the quality of this persistent life?
A Fleshy form twisted into tangled knots
And mind cramped with bitter regret
The sun shines, but darkness covers me with futility
Soul stripped to the bone
Thousand-yard stare fixed on far horizon
Sane men call me mad




"Quality Of Life - Poem" (Aug. 2000) by A.K. Whitehead


I have lived a life-- or two,
depending where the line is drawn.
What has been accomplished
is, as if it were, undone,
and what remains undone 
is the heel that kicks the spur. 
Life, time, accomplishment
define each other...
and their exclusions
rising like pale mountain ranges
whose heights perceptibly increase
with their proximity

Finally a poem read by the author herself.  This is "Quality of Life" by poet Harryette Mullen. It is a part of her 5th collection, the book entitled Sleeping with the Dictionary (2002)



Art work displayed:
"Quality of Life" (2010) Sandy Brooke
"Quality of Life" (2007) spotandbones
"Quality of Life Painting" (2007) Patrick Sheridan

Past gallery posts: "Itch", "Dysphoria","Last Breath", "Pain", "Afterlife", "Restless","Stillness" and "Grief"

Tweet

Tweet

After a great suggestion from a reader, in these gallery series, I will now let the art speak for itself. A poem related to the gallery topic will fill the space. All artwork is copyrighted to each individual artist, and credited in order at the end of the post.

Tweet

If you were to non-verbally depict the emotion of grief, I would assume many would strike a pose of head in your hands. This simple gesture I found in countless photographs and paintings as I searched for this weeks art collection of pieces with the title "Grief".

I tried to find less traditional images, however, I've always liked this oil painting by Gene Gould, "Grief" (c1965). Though with that same pose, it conveys much with the colors used and the drips of paint.

With similar color scheme and graphic representation of body posturing is this piece to the right by Gustave Miller entitled "Grief".


Both of these imply a solitary grief, but consoling and shared grief is also important. I found an artist named Linda Branch Dunn who keeps a website of her pieces. She works mostly with fabrics. This was an interesting look at an artist's work in progress. The first photo to the left is a fabric piece entitled "Grief" (2007), depicting 2 people in embrace. She mentions being inspired by a photo after a bombing. Click on the image to see the exquisite detail of the stitching.


What is interesting is that she mentions just framing it, but then changes course, as she adds much more color and fabric, leading to a different piece, the title changing to "Fractured" (2007). I find the pieces completely different, even though you still see the original in Fractured. Which one do you like better?





Moving into a bit more abstract is this piece by Pat Goslee, a mixed media on paper called "Grief Underneath" (2008). The impression the piece leaves me with is that of someone, again head down, clutching their gut. However, as is the case with more abstract works, you may see something completely different. The color scheme is less gloomy the the first 2 pieces.





For the sculpture contribution to this gallery edition, I've chosen the work by Henri Laurens (1885-1954) called "Le Douleur (Grief)". What is ironic is that it adorns the grave of it's creator in Paris. Did Henri have in mind his own death as he worked on the piece? Perhaps it was anticipatory grief, a phenomenon we talk of often in palliative medicine. Again the figure hunches inward, grasping what seems to be a pillow.

The common theme of most of the works does seem to be physically posturing inward. Is that because emotionally grief brings us inward?

If you like these gallery posts do check out the previous installments of "Last Breath", "Pain", "Afterlife", "Restless", and "Stillness".