BACK TO NORMAL (A Hybrid Suite)- KIMBALL ANDERSON

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A digital painting of a person in a mask, thick textured strokes that expand out from the pale skin tone into an almost white background. Over the aura mask, in red handwritten pencil it says: back to normal. And then under it: kimball anderson

Thick strokes of pale yellow digital paint cascade down from the top.

Darker vertical strokes fill the background, this time with peachy brown skin tones mixed in with the yellowy shades. Dark gray handwritten text reads: For a while my father was in my dreams every night. Sometimes it’d be him in his final months, and the dream would distort darkly around him. And sometimes he’d just be there, like he always was.

More thick skin tone colors fill the background. Text reads: I thought on some level that I could protect him. Protect him from covid, from pain, from conflict, from death. After I failed that impossible task, I at least tried to protect myself. I felt worthless, but I tried to remember that I was important to him.

The page is split into two different digital paintings combined with parts of photos, both of a face wearing a mask. The top having mostly the upper face, and the bottom the lower. In the top an eye looks up with a slightly dark expression and blotches of color dissipate away from it. In red handwriting, it says: it’s a sign of mental illness. On the bottom a face turned the other way, only really seeing the mask and hints of cheek. Colors blend in wide strokes into shoulders clad in a dark sweater. Red text says: a religion, a cult.

The page is split in two again. Narrowed, sleepy eyes rendered in large splotches that radiate away as they define the face and mask. Red text says: it’s just virtue signaling. And then continues: your friends pat you on the back for it. The bottom image looks more distorted, with details like an eye uncomfortably wiped away. A hand is held to the head, and red text reads: you think it makes you look good.

The top image is closer up, fingers brushing hair behind the ear, retaining a photo motion blur. Over the eye it reads: I will lick doorknobs. On the bottom it’s back to almost the full face, the mask becoming like almost a smoke over the face as the details almost all fall away. Text says: breathe in your face. And it continues: cough in your mouth.

In the top, a forehead with a downcast eye looking down over the brim of the mask. Thick strokes make almost everything else lose definition. In red it says: I’d love to tear it off your face. A face from a low angle, the mask filling much of the image, with the bands stretching over to curls of hair. Over the mask in red it says: to spit in it.

A tired eye looks out through an image that looks like murky glass. Red text reads: most people have moved on. On the bottom, light bounces off of a hand held to a forehead over a mask. A dark circle near suggests an iris in the midst of ghostly pale strokes. Words read: most of us never cared.

Thick, vertical strokes of peach, brown, and pale yellow again fill the background. Dark text reads: As months passed in a haze of shame and depression, I saw the world recede away. A passive unwelcoming. There’s an absence now, but it’s no longer as easy to place.

Again, the page is split into two paintings. They are vaguer, with no spots of photo showing, and the faces look more abstract. Over dark chasms where eyes should be, it says in red: with a few basic steps, most of us can finally ignore COVID. And below, with a face that almost looks scrunched and folded under the smooth mask, it says: most people can wait to get a covid booster.

At the top, the top of a faded face that gives a feeling of peaceful letting go. Red text reads: For now, though, most Americans do not need to change their daily lives. A darker image below, with smoothed features and the corner of a palm blocking the light. It says: you no longer need to organize your life around personal fear of Covid

Reddish shadows melt into the top of the face, down over eyelids and eyes in shadow. The bottom shows a face and mask looking especially stretched and distorted, eyelid looking swollen and the white of the mask swirling off below. Red text reads: Most Americans have now had Covid-19

The top of a face is simplified and carved out of the background shade. At the bottom short and thick strokes make a nubbly texture over the face and mask, but somehow it feels almost sad. In red it says: The country has largely returned to normal.

Kimball Anderson makes comics that have a floating feeling and rhythm to them. Since they were young they’ve been disabled by chronic illness, which informs every part of their creative process. Much of their work explores the ignored, quiet spaces along the periphery that people fall into, and the lost and yearning people that fall into them. You can find them as Twitter: earnestattempts on most social media, or symbolandperson on instagram.

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