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When words fail to describe how living with chronic pain feels, artists pick up any number of media to convey their experiences. A new year doesn’t mean that all old wounds or long-term health conditions are healed. Portland-based collective The Chronic Pain Project is hosting a group of more than 30 international artists for Illuminating the Invisible: The Beauty Behind the Pain, an exhibition opening Jan. 8 at Southwest Community Center and showing into February.
Illuminating the Invisible will “explore themes of isolation, resilience, the frustration of invisible illness, and unexpected moments of beauty within struggle,” according to an exhibition statement. Along with local makers, artists from Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and elsewhere across the United States will also show work. While pieces of art—paintings, fiber arts, sculptures and mixed media among mediums represented—will be connected to living with chronic pain, some will directly convey an artist’s experience, some will also be the effort of cathartic healing to cope with pain.
“People with chronic pain know their own stories better than any researcher or clinician,” Janna Kimel, CPP’s founder and executive director, said in a statement. “This exhibition isn’t about studying chronic pain from the outside—it’s about creating space for artists to share what they know, what they’ve lived, and what they’ve created from that experience.”
SEE IT: Illuminating the Invisible: The Beauty Behind the Pain at Southwest Community Center, 6820 SW 45th Ave., 503-823-2840, portland.gov/parks/southwest-community-center. 6–7:30 pm Thursday, Jan. 8; on view through Feb. 19. Free. All ages.
