Triptych 007 : Twenty-One Square Feet
Left Panel
200 x 90 cm
Centre Panel
200 x 90 cm
“Twenty-One Square Feet ”
2017 mixed media on canvas
200 x 270 cm
by Angel Correa
The skin is the largest and heaviest organ and heaviest organ in the body. Each of us carries around 21 square feet of skin, and the skin contributes 10% of our body-weight. The skin contains us, and through the skin we receive the most fundamental and primitive form of communication, starting with a mother’s caress and later through a lover’s embrace.
Once the skin is cut or burned, however, we become very vulnerable indeed. This depiction is of a blast, which is very common in battles. Unfortunately a blast is intended to burn everything in its path. Unimaginable pain is the immediate result for those who survive, but during recovery, those in combat who have experienced extensive burning must accept incremental degrees of improvement in the face of severe disfigurement, loss of elasticity, and multiple instance of infection.
Enduring the hostility of the everyday environment becomes the greater battle, and the one which requires luck and tenacity in equal measure. Most of us can only imagine the clenched-teeth levels of pain – physical, emotional and spiritual – which must be endured on the long road to recovery.
Right Panel
200 x 90 cm
