Waiting Room, Heather Huston
A drawing of a figure sitting on a chair where plains of the image have been cut and pasted at strange angles. The colourful shirt is printed on the back of the milky paper, making the colours faded. The room is rendered with partial blocks of colour and a drawn outline of the borders of the room and the door. A flat grid descends from the top of the image.
Title: Waiting Room
Artist: Heather Huston
Date: 2017
Medium/Materials: Silkscreen on Yupo
Dimensions: 71 cm x 102 cm
Form/Genre: Print
Key Terms/Subject/Tags: Chronic illness; Anxiety; Patient narrative
Artist Statement:
While much of our knowledge of illness is framed through the biomedical context, Heather Huston work centers affect and the performance of daily life as significant sites of meaning for understanding chronic illness. As such, her works are connected to both the Embodied States and Reclaiming Patient Narrative thematic categories. Her own experiences with autoimmune disorders have served as a catalyst for creating works that explore and deepen our understanding of life lived with illness. In her words, Huston’s body is the site of a sort of slow disaster, an evolving and unnerving landscape of misbehaving systems.
Huston is interested in the metaphorical relationship between paper and skin, as well as evoking paper surfaces and gowns in medical offices. Paper also references the thin separation between interior sensations of the body and the external presentation. Pain and stiffness pull her focus from the practice of daily life into a contemplation of her body. She is always aware of my body and its constantly changing state, her hands the most visibly and functionally affected. The repetition of shapes, motifs, and images is echoed by the repetition that is inherent to print as well as the routines of daily life.
Cultural Context / Story Behind the Work:
Created in response to many hours spent in waiting rooms during Huston’s chronic illness journey.
Rights for this Image:
This digital image is licensed under CC BY-NC 4.0. You are free to share it for non-commercial purposes, as long as you credit the artist.
Learn More:
Instagram: @printerbird