A new exhibition at the Artworks Center for Contemporary Art in Loveland, Colorado, showcases 24 pieces of visual art by 15 artists who live with or are impacted by Long COVID. Within a dynamic gallery space, a diversity of work showcases different aspects of the Long COVID experience under the theme “And Still It Remains.”
As the artists live with an energy-limiting disease, many of these pieces were painstakingly created, just a few minutes at a time. These creative efforts may have also required artists to rest for days before or afterward, adding significant weight to standing in their presence. The gallery is both a stark witness to people’s lived truth with Long COVID and a bright space of creativity and community.
Here, what cannot be felt in data is experienced in literal felt, fabric, and textures. What cannot be communicated in words resonates through video, color, and line work.
When I visited the gallery during its opening weekend, artist Heather Schulte had just finished a public workshop for Stitching the Situation. This collaborative tapestry project documents the ongoing cases and deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. “one blue or red stitch at a time.” Three large panels of embroidered fabric weave through the middle of the gallery, representing the first six months of 2020 — now a small portion of a much bigger piece.
As a longevity project that has no predetermined endpoint, this tactile work mirrors the ongoing nature of living with Long COVID. The stitching work itself Schulte describes as something similar to chronic illness and grief: “a labor, a practice, a meditation.” Creating this space for people is vital, she said.
The missing element in this work, ironically, is data on Long COVID cases. Yet these unsewn marks also make a statement on how this condition has been rendered invisible within society, in comparison to early pandemic tracking of COVID-19 cases and deaths. “From my perspective, the most pressing issue is Long COVID and lifelong disability,” said Schulte.
Creativity as a necessity
Bringing public awareness to Long COVID and giving people living with it a way to tell their stories were goals that Sally Hartshorn, organizer of the exhibition, was keen on accomplishing with the show.
“It’s hard to tell people what it’s really like in your experience, and art is a perfect medium for that,” she said.
As an artist, nurse, and someone who has been affected by Long COVID, Hartshorn wanted to find a way to give others a creative outlet to communicate their experiences. So last fall, she began putting together an art exhibit. The result is an important proof of concept that confirms creative outlets are necessities for people with Long COVID.
The opening night on May 9 — combined with several other area arts events — drew large crowds, who were often surprised at “how debilitating and devastating Long COVID can be,” Hartshorn said. Also in attendance was Mirwais Baheej, a senior policy advisor on Long COVID for the Colorado lieutenant governor’s office who will be on a virtual medical discussion panel as part of the exhibition’s events. Hartshorn hopes moments and connections like these will spur more research on Long COVID and other viruses that can devastate our bodies.
Hartshorn also has two pieces in the show. One of them, the silk fusion work Leaving the Fog Behind, conveys her experience with improvement from cognitive dysfunction and wanting to help others: the wispy nature of the silk lends a foggy feel to the obscured faces in the boat, one that many people with Long COVID are unfortunately familiar with.
On the wall behind, a four-piece series, Long Covid Stage 1–4, chronicles portions of painter Angela Bandurka’s mental and physical journey with the disease. The black and white is striking in person; the ink detail so rich, almost popping off the page.
Rachel Ivy Clarke’s large, quilted works, Magenta Muerta and Long COVID Leftovers, use an unconventional medium to display data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and counter their rose-colored narrative, but I was most struck by the detailed line work sewn into the fabric. It is only upon closer inspection that the curling clouds and tiny stitches are clearly visible, a representation of how Long COVID is often hidden in plain sight within an ongoing pandemic.
Constructed of pink and white handmade paper sewn together with embroidery thread, Karin Dove’s Refuge Quilt also requires a careful eye. Up close, frayed edges of paper squares are connected by meticulous stitches, a breathtaking insight into the delicate balance between completing basic daily tasks and conserving one’s limited energy.
“I hope my work helps reinforce the need for significant investment into understanding and treating Long COVID and [myalgic encephalomyelitis],” said Dove. “At the same time, I want others with these illnesses to see the enjoyment and meaning I seek and find in creativity, even though I can only pursue it a few minutes at a time.”
I want others with these illnesses to see the enjoyment and meaning I seek and find in creativity, even though I can only pursue it a few minutes at a time.
Karin Dove
Art pushing against isolation, limitations
Notably absent in the gallery were benches, or places to sit down. Although I did not require one the day I visited, I would have appreciated one to sit with Kelly Meiners’ abstract paintings. Day Dream and Equilibrium are colorful, beautifully composed multimedia works. The brushwork dances, the colors pop, the raised gold edges just one of many layers of detail.
Meiners said she is mostly bedbound and follows a strict routine to be able to have conversations, send emails, or create art. Even slight deviations from this routine can have severe consequences.
“Ironically, I forgot to set a 10-minute timer while painting this piece. I became so absorbed in the flow that I didn’t realize 40 minutes had passed until I lost fine motor skills,” she said. An “evening full of seizures” and then a week in bed followed.
A former physical therapist and athlete, and still a friend, devoted partner, and mom of three, Meiners is determined to control what she can and maintain a positive attitude despite her uncertain future. “Life remains a precarious balance with constant instability of my health,” she said, a concept reflected in the title Equilibrium.
01 and 10 by Kodandi Nithyananda are digital video artworks, mesmerizing diagnostic images that cycle through like glittering stars in the night sky, birds migrating, or worlds forming and falling apart. The charcoal, ink, and pastels of Leeann Rae’s Breathe in, breathe out feel as though they might come right off the page, the layers of line work vibrating with movement.
Life remains a precarious balance with constant instability of my health.
Kelly Meiners
In Holding It All, Tanja Schlosser illustrates the ongoing effort of protecting and pacing oneself, using both colorful umbrellas and abstract forms. Lisa Sheets’ mixed-media collage Stop uses carefully selected imagery to explore the cultural connections between this pandemic and those of our past, and the feeling of being stuck on a never-ending roller coaster. Margo Spellman’s Desert Fog and Desert Hermit include geometric abstract designs that explore, for Spellman, how to authentically navigate this new reality and with a different brain from before.
Rose Friedman’s art caught my attention with its movement, the brushwork lively and textured. With muted colors and hidden symbols, LDN was inspired by a nightmare she experienced while newly on low-dose naltrexone, a treatment some with Long COVID are trying.
Then there’s Bubble, which depicts the growing rift between those who try to “return to normal,” and those, like Friedman, who cannot. Hanah Yendler’s Long Covid // Depersonalization, the cover image for the exhibition, uses literal gold thread to stitch back together pieces of her own photograph — a nod both to the Japanese practice of kintsugi, finding healing in the process of repair, and the fragmentation of the self.
AnaKacia Shifflet’s The Painted Dress is a visceral and engaging experience to behold; the paint feels fresh, like the viewer got to participate in throwing it themselves. In illmarks, Nyx Mir uses bookmarks to depict many of the diverse symptoms and impacts that Long COVID can have on one’s body, detailed in both horror and beauty.
Mir also expressed thanks for everyone involved in the exhibit, saying the artworks themselves uplift one another — and the artists who made them. “For most of us, Long COVID is very isolating and limits our abilities to go out in public, let alone travel. I envision our art as traveling to the gallery for us, and sharing our stories on behalf of our bodies.”
We desperately need more research, treatments, and cures for Long COVID and other infection-associated chronic diseases. Yet as we continue in year six of this pandemic, I worry that those suffering out of the eye of society will become even more invisible.
Art, however, is the oldest and most potent tool of communication in human history. It is in this creative realm where I see both community and our humanity sustained.
“Many kinds of art were key ways of spreading knowledge, safety, and community during the AIDS crisis,” said Mir. “And I believe Long COVID art will be for us as well.”
Many kinds of art were key ways of spreading knowledge, safety, and community during the AIDS crisis. And I believe Long COVID art will be for us as well.
Nyx Mir
“And Still It Remains: A Long Covid Exhibition” runs May 9 through June 28, 2025, at the Artworks Center for Contemporary Art in Loveland, Colorado. The Long COVID Medical Panel is taking place at ArtWorks in person and virtually on June 1 from 1–3 p.m. MT. An artists’ talk will be held virtually on June 14 from 1–3 p.m. MT. (Please email LCexhibit@outlook.com for the Zoom links.)
Artists: Angela Bandurka, Rachel Ivy Clarke, Karin Dove, Rose Friedman, Sally Hartshorn, Kelly Meiners, Nyx Mir, Kodandi Nithyananda, Leeann Rae, Tanja Schlosser, Heather Schulte, Lisa Sheets, AnaKacia Shifflet, Margo Spellman, Hanah Yendler.
Kelsey Simpkins is a writer, artist, and science communicator, who works in air quality policy, outreach, and education.
Editor’s note, May 28: This story has been updated to correct an artist’s name.
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