Craig Talbot | Lift With Your Knees

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Craig Talbot, “Arggh,” 2022

(courtesy of the Artist)

This exhibition chronicles the various aspects of chronic pain and how it affects my life.  There have been ups and downs, but I am grateful for it now because I learned a lot about myself in the process.

It is important to mention that painting is one of the most important parts of my recovery from chronic pain. No matter how much pain I am feeling, painting keeps me busy and even on a bad pain day, I can still feel great because I made a painting.  It is a form of release because pain affects my mental health a lot as well.

Making this body of work reminded me of where I’ve been and made me grateful that it was finally over.

My experience with chronic pain makes me question the medical world’s methods of treating chronic pain.  I had a herniated disc in my spine.  All that was required to fix it was to inject medicine directly into the hernia.  It took me 2 years to get into the pain clinic and almost a year after that to get the injection.  I suffered greatly during that time.

The work in the exhibition allows me to document my personal struggle with chronic pain I developed a relationship with the pain.  Pain becomes an entity unto itself. It took all I had to fight the pain instead of giving up.  This process allowed me to become a stronger person and gave me a new sense of freedom.

Many cultures view pain as a sacred thing.  My experience proves to me that this is true.