La Maladie

International Museum of Surgical Science
1524 N Lake Shore Drive
Chicago, IL 60610
(www.imss.org)
From 8 November until 24 January
Rating:***

La Maladie is a unique exhibition that is currently part of a rotating series at the International Museum of Surgical Science in Chicago. The present exhibition features the work of Betsy Stirratt.

This exhibition includes oil and gold leaf paintings as well as brilliantly evocative photographs and collages. La Maladie charts Stirratt's fight against breast cancer from diagnosis to after mastectomy. The artist's vulnerability is beautifully depicted in a series of black and white photographs that rely heavily on perspective and shadow. The photographs show the physical effect of malignancy on the artist's body. Stirratt's husband, who works as a photographer, took the photographs throughout the course of her illness and treatment. The photographs show the emotion of artist and husband throughout the process.

Paintings and collages focus on the working of the human body and emphasise underlying illness. This was achieved by outlining the human body and depicting sections through it to graphically show emotion as well as the disease. The ability to tell a personal story of the trials and tribulations of living with breast cancer through art is one of the strengths of this exhibition.

The importance of self image is highlighted through a series of gold leaf paintings and photographs from magazines to produce collages. These photographs were used to demonstrate public perception of beauty and how the artist once saw herself. Through a series of paintings the artist's perception of herself changes and she sees herself become beautiful again in mind and body. Stirratt's imagery of death and dying as well as her preoccupation with body image shocks and saddens. Much of the exhibition uses imagery of death and dying by having smaller paintings within paintings or collages thereby drawing the viewer to gaze into the exhibit. Stirratt sees her work as "a statement about our physical and spiritual mortality." The exhibition was a healing process for the artist and her disease provided inspiration to compile it and has developed her interest in medical issues.