Timen

1000mm (w) x 1000mm (h) canvas.
Black box framed.
Acrylic, spray paint and ink on stretched primed canvas.
Signed and dated.
Ready to hang with d-rings and hanging wire on the back.
2026.
 
This is an original painting. Artwork comes with certificate of authenticity and Sarah Sculley promotional goods, professionally packed for shipping. If you live outside of Australia, please get in touch to discuss delivery options.
 
Synopsis
Timen is a visual record of the disorientation and vulnerability of encephalitis, a period when some of the most basic ways I experienced and communicated with the world began to disappear.
The lines cutting across the eyes represent the loss and distortion of my vision, while the intense marks and colours reflect the overwhelming headaches and extreme sensitivity to light I experienced. The large black marks crossing the mouth and the frantic scribbles represent losing my ability to speak. I could no longer find or communicate the words I was thinking. For a time, the only word I could say was “timen”, a word that had no clear meaning but became my fragment of communication.
The layers of paint, disrupted portrait, scribbled marks and competing gestures create a sense of a mind struggling to make sense of its surroundings. What might ordinarily be recognisable becomes fragmented and obscured, reflecting the experience of losing access to things that had previously felt automatic: seeing, speaking, thinking and communicating.
The title Timen comes directly from that experience. It is the word that remained when so many other words were gone, a small, mysterious remnant of language that became a symbol of an experience I am still trying to understand.