Art in my veins

Art in My Veins is a life-sized, three-dimensional medical self-portrait which describes, in a truthful but humorous way, Philip’s adventures with kidney failure, cancer, a heart condition and other medical annoyances. The piece was featured in The American Visionary Art Museum’s 2015 exhibition The Big Hope Show, which represented 25 visionary artists, among them many “super survivors” of enormous personal traumas.  The sculpture incorporates his medical postal envelopes, bandage faces and numerous items saved from a decade’s worth of medical procedures.

“I see the visual artistic potential in just about everything. The everyday items that pass through our lives, and usually into the trash, are what I use as my art media. Medical packaging, prescription bottles, chocolate wrappers, dreams, meeting notes, patterns in the sand and accidental designs combined with drawing, painting and photography are what I use.

When I broke my arm a decade ago, I discovered myriad health care artistic opportunities based on medical procedures and related medical detritus. All of this was so interesting to me that when the cast came off and the pins were pulled from my arm, I started collecting this and other medical ephemera/trash. What followed in my life was Atrial Fibrillation, Electrical Cardioversion, Vasectomy, High Blood Pressure, High Cholesterol, Kidney Disease, Peritoneal Dialysis, Hemodialysis, Skin Cancer, Prostrate Cancer Surgery and Radiation, and finally a Kidney Transplant.

Being surrounded by medical professionals in all of these disciplines, with all their high-tech equipment—buzzing and chiming sounds, and flashing lights—has been stimulating and interesting to me. All of these amazing people and this fascinating stuff had to be incorporated into my creative projects.”

—Philip Carey (2017)

AVAM founder Rebecca Alban Hoffberger had this to say about the piece:

Simply put, Philip Carey’s “Art in My Veins” bleeds art. A life-sized self portrait wrought from the meds, IV’s, decorated bandages and machines that together with his playful sense of humor kept Carey alive through a litany of illnesses that would have killed even a bull elephant. Carey’s “Art in My Veins” is a sculptural toast to life and hope, miraculously installed at the American Visionary art Museum on the very day—September 18, 2015—that Philip Carey at last won his battle for what has now proved a most successful kidney transplant. A featured work in “The Big Hope Show,” Carey’s “Art in My Veins” inspired my essay on the 22 people who die each day waiting for an organ donor for every willing potential donor who comes forth. A rare triumph artistically speaking, “Art in My Veins” inspired four museum visitors to gift one healthy kidney to total strangers. Philip Carey excels in the art of living, laughing, persistence and the wielding of art as honest and lively reflection of his own very remarkable life. The viewers of his art have taken that artistry an inspired step further.

The piece was also featured in a 2016 article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

In 2017, Philip was featured on a podcast by Courtemanche & Associates, discussing “Art in My Veins” and the role of art in his healthcare journey. You can listen to the episode here: