Benefit + Awareness Month

Artist Showcase

At Opera Mariposa, we believe in the power of art to tell stories. In these pieces, multidisciplinary artists with ME/CFS, Fibromyalgia and Long Covid have done just that – fusing art and advocacy to illuminate life with “invisible” illnesses.

Many of these artists have worked across disciplines – as performers, composers, stage managers, makeup artists and more. Here, we showcase their visual arts creations and their written words, to reveal another facet of how our community uses art to raise our voices.

Access: Artwork includes alt text, image descriptions, and definitions of medical jargon. Our gallery will remain online, so please enjoy it at your own pace. Content warnings: references to symptoms, ableism, pandemic isolation.

Click on each art piece below to explore the artist’s work.

Over-the-shoulder view of Christina working on a laptop with a lap desk in bed. On the screen is a detail of her digital collage 'Wings of Hope', showing a closeup of a purple butterfly. Christina's hands have baby blue nail polish, and she's wearing a cream sweater covered in large multi-coloured flowers. Beyond the computer screen you can see her bed, covered in a fluffy pink blanket and rainbow throw pillows.
Lia's hand cups a detail of an embroidery of some bronchi stitched in off white thread on natural coloured linen. The bronchi look like tree branches. Some blue fabric marker can be seen beneath the stitches.
On bone white linen a spine and sacrum are sketched in blue marker. The sacrum and some of the lumbar vertebrae have been stitched in thick bone white thread. To the left of the stitching sits a folded piece of paper with a spine and lumbar vertebrae printed on it. What has been stitched is checked off in red pen. The bottom of the page reads: Back view of spine.

Discover more images on Opera Mariposa’s Instagram – including a behind-the-scenes look at the making of some of the artwork!

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Check out the Artists

BERLIN BUYERS CLUB
Colourful illustration of a woman with purple hair and olive skin, peeking out from behind a flowing pink blanket with her eyes closed and one relaxed hand showing. The image has a light aqua background, and is scattered with white clouds and pale yellow stars. Turquoise hand drawn text reads, Get some rest
RANA
Impressionistic painting of golden rudbekia flowers dancing against a stylized background of green grass shading into an azure sky
EILEEN THERESA STEPHENS
Surreal collage of a large shell that has been opened. Inside its base is a light blue bed with a white woman who has black hair and red lips. She is sitting up and stretching out her arms as if she has just awoken from a deep slumber. The roof of the shell is a starry night sky with a crescent moon.
CHRISTINA BALTAIS
In the centre of some bone white linen, there is a spine embroidered in a thick satin stitch. Emanating from the spine are thick burgundy lines in an undulant oval shape. This oval is bisected across the middle. In the top half, there is a section outlined in burgundy filled with coiling blue lines and a similar section in the bottom half. The rest of the undulant oval is filled with fine coiling burgundy lines. The spine is very straight, the rest of the embroidery is very coiled and busy. Lia’s initials are stitched in fine thread the same colour as the cloth at the bottom right.
LIA PAS
Illustration of a white girl with lavender eyes and Heidi braids, wearing a blue dress covered in white spiral patterns. The girl's skirt flows around her and her arms are outstretched, as purple, white and blue ribbons swirl around her like butterfly wings. Behind her, a lilac and sky blue background is covered in a tracery of translucent white spirals and floral patterns.
TONI SCOTT

Enjoy more Benefit + Awareness programming

Discover our other digital offerings for May Awareness Month

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