Henri Doner-Hedrick

Em’s Fightin’ Words
oils, color gesso, collage
48 x 36 in.

This work is part of a series that is focused on American elderly living in nursing home facilities. The title of the series is “Spirit in the Nursing Home Culture.”

Initially, I wanted to understand how the combination of 9-11 and the war in Iraq was affecting my mother and her life. I wanted to know what she was thinking and how she was perceiving what was going on in the world. Then I started thinking about her life and how I could preserve those memories. My parent is 91 years old, and since she has been in a nursing care facility, her life has changed, and the culture of the facility has changed. For the past four or five years I have been recording those changes using photography, video, and paintings.

My work is a small reflection of some of the changes that our elders go through on a day-to-day basis in these “term” facilities. Some experiences are good, some not so good. After hearing many stories from other families and experiencing our own, I feel compelled to utilize my artwork as a means to represent these individuals as a whole. Age: 54

© Henri Doner-Hedrick