portrait of a patient
A collection of words and visuals pertaining to my personal experience with illness
My response to living with inflammatory bowel disease. Each painting is accompanied by a poem. Each piece below is 1.2 metres high and the four pieces hung for a year in the Trinity Health Sciences building on the St. James campus. Some of the lecturers at Trinity Centre for Health Sciences used the artwork as a teaching aid to create greater awareness around the position of the patient and chronic illness. A number of lecturers asked if they could include the imagery and words in their lectures.
One of the pieces, ‘Oppression’ was also exhibited in the virtual exhibition ‘Expression Days’.
I was subsequently approached to be a guest speaker and present the project at the annual open day for the Irish Society for Crohns & Colitis in 2018 at The Gibson Hotel in Dublin. I was also interviewed as part of a four-part radio documentary ‘IBD & I’ on iRadio with Michaela Hayes.
#portraitofapatient
Trinity Provost 2018 - fund for visual arts
The artist, Sinead Lawless, is a young woman who has had to redefine her life as a result of a chronic illness, Ulcerative Colitis. This is a chronic inflammatory bowel disease. During the course of her disease, she has kept drawing and writing to illustrate and reflect how the disease has impacted on her, both physically and mentally.
Cillin Condon, TCD, approached Sinead to apply for funding to support her to paint four of these images on canvas to be hung in the common areas of the Trinity Centre for Health Sciences. The genesis for this is teaching young adults who may not have experience chronic pain or suffering and so as they gain knowledge about disease prior to clinical training may not be able fully empathise with the patient experience.
The images will be near common areas used by all healthcare students and staff. Members of the public also access these common areas.
For more information visit https://www.tcd.ie/provost/arts/
Inflammatory Bowel Disease
* The term inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) covers a group of disorders (Crohn’s and Colitis) in which the intestines become inflamed, as a result of an immune reaction of the body against its own intestinal tissue. Inflammatory bowel disease can result in permanent damage to the intestines, intestinal bleeding, rectal bleeding, ulcers, or serious complications. There are many treatments available to help patients to manage their condition but currently no cure. It can also affect many other systems of the body.
For more information visit https://www.iscc.ie/