2021 national Art Awards winner, Menacing Mosquito

This 4 x 6" watercolour, entitled "Menacing Mosquito", won the 2021 national Art Awards of the Canadian Pain Society (CPS). The theme was "Imagining Pain", and each entry had to be accompanied with a brief essay explaining how the artwork represented the impact of pain in some way. My essay follows, below.

4 x 6", painted in 2021. Watercolour. Artist's Code 4x6-100. My essay, as part of this winning submission:
This abstract mosquito represents the ever-present burden of chronic pain.
If you’ve ever tried to fall asleep with a mosquito in your room, you know how distracting and even distressing it can seem!
Chronic pain is much worse, buzzing its way into your mind and intruding in your thoughts.
Pain makes it hard to concentrate at school, at work, or even on fun activities.

Chronic pain can also be menacing, because we expect our bodies to use pain to tell us that something is wrong. Appendicitis, kidney stones, labour pains – these kinds of pain signals are the body’s internal alarms, telling us to get medical help!
In chronic pain though, the body’s pain alarm stays on – all the time – even after any injury has healed, or sometimes for no obvious reason.
Not only is that mosquito buzzing around you all the time, imagine feeling that it is constantly biting you… when it isn’t. Chronic pain is much worse than a mosquito bite, of course, but I’m sure you get the idea!

Even though we’d like to swat pain away, like a mosquito, much more research is needed to make that possible. In the meantime, many people live with constant and long-term pain.
Like a menacing mosquito, hovering constantly over your head for months, years, or even decades.