“This painting celebrates the heroic effort of nurses in the frontline of the COVID-19 crisis. While society is saving its own unprepared sanity through an escapism into fantasies, conspiracy theories and narratives sourced from sci-fi and apocalyptic films, the real sheroes, wearing real masks save the real world. Sheroes: real mothers, real daughters, real sisters and neighbours are separated from the perceived salvation of these fantasies by their crude reality in the mist of an unknown future. 

The painting alludes to the failure of the state to provide appropriately for these health workers and to the absurdity of the current situation when powerful countries disclose their own negligence and neglect of their vital health systems which have been left in decline. These are the echoes, elevated into a national level, of any story that has been silenced and ignored and yet awaits its moment of justice. In some sense, the portrait of the nurse tells a #metoo story – but is it exclusively a story of women workers? Hasn’t it, in fact, become a story of each of us who can potentially be refused help and support when we need it most?

The predicament of COVID-19 has revealed that our position, roles and status in society can be dramatically overturned. This is formally represented by the replacement of traditional canvas with a homemade woven fabric. The knit also refers to activities, somewhat also previously forgotten and abandoned, but now rediscovered and cherished during the current quarantine. The aspect of ‘homemade-ness’  is being widely implemented today to evade ‘home-madness’.

The ‘Beautiful Nurse in the Mist with Amphetamine…’ Is a ‘sister’ version of ‘Lucy in the sky with diamonds, but it is a version without any actual drugs being available.”