Courage in the Eye of the Storm Description:
Courage in the Eye of the Storm honours a medical professional named Eleonora from Pesaro, Italy. She is represented in the upper left of the painting. Special thanks to @Alberto_Giuliani for giving me permission to use his photograph of Eleonora. Giuliani is an Italian photographer who took photographs of doctors and nurses at San Salvatore Hospital in Pesaro, Italy at the outset of the pandemic.
I was drawn to these honest and soulful photographs that show the deep imprints of the protective equipment these workers wear for up to 12 hours a day. They cannot take off the protective equipment to get a drink of water or even go to the bathroom for fear of impairing the effectiveness of the equipment.
My husband’s family is from Italy so I was particularly invested in capturing the crisis the coronavirus has brought to this country. The figure under the wave is a symbol of all nurses who are putting themselves at risk every time they go to work during this pandemic. She is embracing, comforting and mourning for the whole of Italy who has been hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. The approaching wave that is about to engulf them is a symbol of the pandemic itself: unrelenting.