Reading Lisa Kingstone’s words in “Angel Lounge, her essay in the Fall/Winter 2025 issue of Intima: A Journal of Narrative Medicine, I rediscovered what I had painted in my series “CHEMOod” without yet knowing it: the emotional geography of care, fear and life-saving kindness.
© CHEMO-od. Annunziata Tricario. Acrylic - 7 - “Lonely Always Never”
In the seventh and final canvas of the CHEMOod art project, I depict human silhouettes. A female figure with an emaciated face, mottled skin from medication, a hairless head and a gaze lost in a void. Behind her, the void continues: a room, a box, her mind. It is a dense, saturated environment, the color of pain. On the canvas, the phrase reads: “Lonely always never.”
When facing illness or pain in any form, we often find ourselves alone. Not because the world is insensitive, but because even those who love us sometimes do not know how to help, how to interact, or cannot find the right words. Suffering often drives us into isolation, by choice or necessity. Yet overcoming difficulties, while born from our inner resources, which we often discover in the silence of solitude, would not be possible without the presence, visible or invisible, of special people.
The silhouettes in CHEMOod’s seventh canvas represent precisely these people: Lisa Kingstone’s angels. Magical presences, sometimes invisible, yet immensely powerful. Angels without wings, with hands that gently touch, voices that reassure, and silent presences asking for nothing. Family, friends, and even strangers, whose gestures or smiles can buffer the impact of pain.
Today, priorities seem to be efficiency, technological excellence and productivity. We live in a world where everyone rushes like scattered shards, where humanity and courtesy seem outdated, almost incompatible with modern success.
© CHEMO-od. Annunziata Tricario. Acrylic - 5 - “Gourmand More Than Ever”
In the fifth CHEMOod canvas, “Gourmand More Than Ever,” a cheerful, slightly whimsical woman appears, surrounded by vibrant colors and holding a delicious dessert. Despite being unable to taste food because of the treatments, I felt an intense need both to eat and to smile. The first was certainly due to the cortisone, but the second to an important truth: how essential it is to keep smiling, especially during illness. I did everything I could to keep going for myself and for my family.
Smiles are contagious and, as Kingstone reminds us, tiny acts of kindness, like offering a cookie, can be life-saving. Hospitals should embrace a genuine philosophy of kindness, where a smile is the first medicine prescribed.
We are all potential angels, distracted by the race of daily life and by misguided priorities. Angels who sometimes forget good manners, acting boorishly, letting arrogance or carelessness replace kindness. While this may slightly irritate a “normal” person, it can crush someone who is suffering.
Vulnerability belongs not only to patients but also to those who stay, those who assist, those who enter the pain of others without defenses. True care emerges in this encounter between fragilities.
CHEMOod is my visual testimony to this: we do not heal alone, nor do we suffer truly alone when a human angel stands beside us, even for a moment, asking nothing. It is born from the awareness that pain is personal, yet never completely solitary.
Annunziata Tricarico is a contemporary artist, curator, and marketing professional. With over twenty years of experience, she has collaborated with leading companies and agencies, including Saatchi & Saatchi, managing high-profile campaigns for global brands. Originally from Italy, she holds a Master’s degree in conservation of cultural heritage. After formative years in Brussels, which shaped her professional and artistic path, she has been living in Abu Dhabi since 2019. Paintings from her CHEMO-od series appear in the Fall-Winter 2025-26 Intima.