ART IN THE SHOP: Patrick Smith “LIFEnearDEATH”

Patrick Smith

LIFEnearDEATH

Portraits from a Hospice

July 7th - August 7th

Join us for the reception:

Saturday, July 11th, 4-7

“This series of portraits shows the faces of patients living in a hospice. The patients are of many ages, from early forties to late eighties. They are dying of various illnesses - stroke, congestive heart disease, emphysema, cancer, AIDS, alcoholism, drug addiction - and of simple old age. Most of the people in the portraits are now dead. A few live on bearing the daily efforts of life. Some are vividly aware of their condition, some are in dementia or wandering the dreamy labyrinth of final days. Some are on the private, knowing journey through medicated pain. The portraits are meant to show that life does not surrender itself until the only final moment; and to dream that, in a way, no one dies, because there is no land between life and death. There is the ultimate heroism, and then the rest.”

Originally published June 24, 2009. Kept online as written, so the links that point here still work.