I KNOW I’VE BEEN A STRANGER LATELY

23.06.22 - 14.08.22

Jonny Acheson / Tara Booth / Grant Ionatán (previously HTMLflowers) / Rachel Lindsay / Keiler Roberts / Moa Romanova / Jacky Sheridan / Leslie Stein / Wee Nuls / Bianca Xunise

The Naughton Gallery presents I Know I’ve Been a Stranger Lately, a new exhibition exploring physical and mental health through the lens of comics and illustration. Featuring some of the most exciting cartoonists and illustrators working today, from Ireland and Australia to Sweden and the USA, the exhibition addresses the important interaction between the medium of comics and the discourse of healthcare. Audiences are invited to discover how issues relating to medicine, health, and disability are addressed, critiqued, celebrated, and unravelled through illustration and graphic storytelling.

In the creation of their work, the exhibiting artists often draw on their own biographies, presenting truly personal narratives which address a range of health conditions, from cystic fibrosis, Parkinson’s disease, and multiple sclerosis, to bipolar disorder, anxiety, and depression. Furthermore, the exhibition engages with topical societal issues around reproductive rights, period poverty, and the ongoing impact of COVID-19, both physical and psychological.

Many of the works on display fall under the umbrella of Graphic Medicine, a genre of comics often studied by doctors and healthcare providers to build empathy and help establish understanding around what it means to be a patient. For patients and their families, such comics can assist readers in working through the social isolation and stigma that often surround disability, sickness, and disease. Thought-provoking, humorous, challenging, inspirational, and heart-breaking (often simultaneously), the exhibited works will ultimately resonate with viewers in different ways based on their own lived experiences, whilst also providing insight into the unfamiliar challenges faced by others.

In addition to the various paintings, drawings, and prints on display, I Know I’ve Been a Stranger Lately features a Graphic Medicine reading table. Visitors are invited to peruse the titles on display, including comics and zines by many of the featured artists, as well as a wider selection of publications by cartoonists such as A Andrews, MK Czerwiec, Élodie Durand, Simon Hanselmann, Mirion Malle, Georgia Webber, and Ian Williams.

This exhibition has been supported by the Queen’s Annual Fund.