Thank You Nurses: Amy Sillman

Amy Sillman, Thank You Nurses. 2020.

The irrepressible Amy Sillman has created a vibrant poster as part of a project of "guerilla art"  honoring nurses and frontline medical staff in hospital ICUs in the national epicenter of the Covid-19 crisis in New York City. As reported by Hakim Bishara in the April 8. 2020 edition of Hyperallergic, to date seventy artists have designed these works, now being reproduced and posted in area hospitals

Sillman's image (the fifth shown in the article) has a large spherical shape, surely the novel coronavirus itself, dominating the lower third of the frame, from which radiate concentric circles, tracing the spread of the pandemic.  The now familiar spikes jut out ominously. Scattered black scratch marks are spread throughout the poster, perhaps marks of the advancing illness and the casualties sweeping the metropolitan area. A dark shadow looms from the left, melding into a pink wash, which transition to a light background on the right, perhaps suggestive of a ray of hope on the horizon.

The large pock-marked virus appears to be caught in a dense spider web, with little spiders scampering about, perhaps  signaling the frontline workers who are trapping the pathogen.  At least twenty-five butterflies, some encased in pink, fly around the entire image. A few wings are shaped like cat's ears with eye0like markings on their wings, reminiscent, to my eyes at least, of Jiji, the magical compansion of Kiki, the lovely apprentice witches in Hayao Miyazakis' marvelous anime, "Kiki's Delivery Service."  Across the middle band of the poster is written "Thank You, Nurses!" 

The butterflies, signifiers of transformation and hope, would seem to be avatars of the heroic nurses themselves. They may also  be evocative of the spirit of the City itself, which out of the horror of the crisis has astounded the nation with resilience, gumption, and grace. 

Amy Sillman, Thank you MDs and RNs. 2020

Addendum: Amy Sillman has also created a lovely poster, "Thank You MDs and RNs." A woman (at least that is the gender suggested by her skirt, leggings and shoes)  rides an animal, which the artist identifies as a black swan. The woman grasps the neck of the bird, and rests her nose affectionately on its head. 

In the financial world, "black swans" are unexpected and unpredictable events, which the Covid-19 crisis certainly is. I'm not sure if that is the reference here though. We are all, like the riding woman, deeply indebted to the medical professionals on the front line, whom, we all hope, will sustain us in our hour of greatest need, and who just might take flight, bringing us all to a safer place.