Wearing thin.

My muse for this painting was five days into a 10-day hospital stay and this patient’s patience was wearing thin. The stay was preempted by a head-on collision between Kim, riding home from work on the bike path, and a guy on an e-scooter who didn’t want to slow down and kept veering left, into Kim’s lane. The guy regretted that decision, as when I arrived (alerted by my Garmin and before the ambulances), there were two people laying prone; Kim covered in blood and the guy, with an obviously badly broken leg. Many helpful cyclists were directing others out of the way.

Back to the hospital, 5 days in, and Kim, after a cold night spent shivering in the corridors of ED, under a blanky which was presumably wearing thin, is wondering if he is in a strange adaptation of the hit TV franchise ALONE.

By this stage, he has seen a doctor once, been ‘nil by mouth’ for 20 hours straight each day for 5 days and is still wearing his very thin bicycle shorts. Kim is blending into the hospital ecosystem better than Gina did in Tasmania but looking just as dirty. At least she had worms to eat I think. Kim is literally wearing thin and behaving with that resigned, starvation induced passivity. If you know Kim you would understand that his metabolism (and his mindset) is not conducive for a 5 day fast in the wilderness of ward 6b and that’s why in this painting I’ve depicted him dissolving into his bedding and wearing a very thin hospital robe as that’s how he looked and felt – all frayed around the edges. Looking his age for a change: old skin, worn thin.

Late that day, after less passivity and more squeaky wheel-ness from both of us, he went into surgery for an assessment and a washout of his degloved arm, smashed up nose and face. I should point out that while the health system, if not already broken, is unsurprisingly, wearing thin. As are the staff, but they are also extremely competent when you can pin them down.

And on day 6 he felt much better, which was lucky as I found him sitting with a shopping bag full of his possessions, on a couch in the patient’s lounge, homeless in the hospital, waiting for a bed in the plastics ward. After another 5 days, more fasting and thinning and more squeaking, he had a second operation, got many stiches and a skin graft (and another wound from the donor site on his thigh) and finally made it home from work. Impatient ‘in’ patient is now recovering as an outpatient.

I thought of calling this painting ‘in sickness”, to allude to it being painted from my viewpoint as a spouse, whose patience was also wearing thin, but given that we aren’t married and that Kim wasn’t sick, but injured, this seemed a bit selfish. I was already taking advantage of Kim in a bad situation by painting it (and thereby making myself feel better). BTY, we have talked about getting married, although mostly for administrative reasons.

Lastly from a technical point of view, the painting is built up using thin glazes over a burnt red, blood-like base layer. The painting is, like Kim, wearing thin layers of that unnatural bluish hospital light that surrounds the patient when the curtains are drawn and creates a peculiar, but contained and sterile little world. A world which contrasts so totally with corporeal pinkness of its inhabitants.