Hope.

Legend to the painting

Bruno Bodejcek is one of the students who completed the course
Biology of Tumors for All, or Cell Philosophy.

The painting shows a seated woman with a black shadow rising from her back. It is neither a cloud nor smoke, but the shadow that best reflects what it is meant to express. The shadow is brought to her by an illness. It wraps, binds and locks the woman inside, thus separating her from the surroundings. In addition to the shadow, however, a golden spring emerges from the woman´s heart. It is hope and a kind of inspiration that even a small stream can break through the great shadow allowing the light to penetrate it again. My inspiration here was Prof. Smardova. As I learned, it was the course Biology of Tumors for All, or Cell Philosophy underlined by the book What Tumors Teach Us that served her as inspiration, hope and motivation (the golden spring) to avoid her fall into this shadow. The course and the book helped her to perceive the disease differently and not to close herself off. They helped her to break the shadow into smaller pieces, making her mind more accessible to the people around. In my opinion, isolation and loneliness hurt a person dealing with an illness the most.