Through oil paintings, watercolor paintings and sculptures I address my life with chronic pain, utilizing acts of repetition, series, and sequence. These works mirror the everyday struggle of having a chronic illness, and the cyclical mundanity of medical treatments. As someone with fibromyalgia- a difficult to diagnose syndrome with a cluster of symptoms revolving around chronic pain- I have spent a large amount of time stuck in a rotation of seeing doctors and testing medications. 

Repetition and mundanity are the centrality of my practice. In my series, Ask Your Doctor About ___ Today, I have painted several individual pill portraits centered on an evenly colored background. Each piece is meticulously decorative in nature due to the pastel colors, mirroring the aesthetic of pills. The medical industry has created a “pretty” palette for marketing their products, turning serious medications into unassuming handfuls of objects that are ingested and forgotten. Each pill is paired with a background of either a complementary or split complementary palette to emphasize how nondescript they have become to me. In the oil painting, Deja Vu, I create repetition by roughly layering multiple bodies, intermingling limbs, and alluding to the passage of time. In the watercolor, Things to Use to Stay Okay, I delicately illustrate posters with pastel pills and medical equipment, obsessively labeling each one. The subtlety of these paintings mimics the quietness of this aspect of my life. It is something I have often hid and longed to discuss without eliciting pity. Simultaneously, I dig into my frustrations with being in a body that betrays me as well as shed light on invisible illnesses and the prescription epidemic.

Alaina Dannecker (She, her, hers) | @alainaartdesign | alainadannecker.com |