Susan Greeff is a South African artist who has exhibited locally and internationally. Continuously drawn back to medical concepts, Greeff’s work explores the interrelationship between art, biology, and psychology, having previously focused on gene-editing, designer babies, and reproductive technology. In unarchiving her past as a midwife and psychiatric nurse during the 70s and 80s, her new solo exhibition – STICK IT – explores the lives and roles of the nurse. Within, Greeff challenges the stereotype of the nurse, instead highlighting their multifaceted humanity – from benevolent, to fun-loving, to hardworking, to cheeky. She valorises the nurse, giving thanks for all they have done, do, and will continue to do, but, contrary to the current narrative, shies away from depicting them as ‘superheroes’. Rather, she depicts them as humans – ordinary, kind, worried, and, wild. While largely influenced by her past and the current climate, Greeff leaves room for the viewer to import their own story onto the artwork.
Greeff’s own history is particularly interesting and inspiring. Having grown up with a father who painted in the background of her life, she had always considered being an artist. However, needing a career that paid the bills, she entered the healthcare profession. When pregnant she began attending night classes to learn how to draw and once proficient enough, undertook an interior design course, which she went on to have a business in for 10 years. Once her children left home, she enrolled at The University of Cape Town at the Michealis Art Department where she undertook a four-year fine art degree, saying, “I absolutely loved being with young people with fresh eyes but yet I had this whole history behind me to inform my practice”. Greeff graduated in 2015 and has been working as a professional artist for 6-years.
'Theatre Nurse' 'Charlie's Angel Nurse'
As someone who has experience and qualifications in both, I was particularly curious about Greeff’s views on the interrelationship between medicine, as a ‘hard science’, and art – two disciplines that are, more often than not, pitted against each other: “When I was working as a nurse, our professor did a test on us to see whether we were more left brain orientated, which is the more rational and scientific side, or right brained which is more creative and imaginative. It was quite incredible how many of us lent toward ‘the right’”. Continuing, she said: “I have heard many stories of doctors who have become painters or musicians. Art definitely does not go against science; it adds to it”. From the other vantage point, Greeff said that “artists have for ages used the art medium to represent what is happening in society; for the public it is easier to look at a visual image than text. Thinking forward 100-years from now when people are looking back at COVID, it will be somehow easier to look at a picture”. Greeff concluded that the visual form “brings things to life so much more and allows the viewer to bring their own history to the painting”.
Related to this, Greeff strives to make her artworks undidactic, stating that they are never “a literal representation, but an expression of a feeling”, thereby leaving room for the viewer to bring their own history to the painting. Developing, Greeff said that she likes “to present an image to the viewer and allow them to make up their mind about something. Art can present a loaded question which might get someone to think a bit more out the box but doesn’t necessarily make up their mind for them”. Providing the example of gene technology, she added: “While we do have the technology to do all this gene editing, when you look at a visual representation of a sort of Frankenstein baby, it can make the biologist question what they are doing and where they are going with it”. In this sense, the uninstructive nature of Greeff’s artistic practice allows the viewer to find meaning and connectivity with it in a personal way. Further, and specifically within the medical sphere, the non-didactic nature of her art catalyses larger, ethical questions related to the trajectory of scientific practice.
'Theatre' 'RN'
As for many, the pandemic has been a time of reflection for Greeff, with this period of reflexivity giving birth to this series: “I started the series during the very hard covid lockdown last March – it was 5-weeks long and we couldn’t go anywhere. It was during this period that Banksy put his work out - of the boy playing with the nurse superhero toy – and it got me thinking about my old friends and the nurses from my past. I just really started having some fun with it; it was nice going back into my personal history. When we were nurses during the 70s and 80s, we were sassy, cheeky and fun loving and would have fun when we were on the ward like play cards on night duty. It was a very special time”. In a period of intense isolation and limited interaction, Greeff said that she found comfort in her “beautiful memories of communion and connection”.
'Stick Me' 'Make Love Not War'
Within her series, I was particularly drawn to a piece called ‘Nurse Hero’ (see Figure 1) due to the juxtaposition of history and now. Another juxtaposition that Greeff highlighted to me was that “the nurse in this piece looks like she’s jettisoning off the page in her PPE, but the figures in the background sort of look like they are hanging in the background”. This interplay between rapid movements and those that are slower moving, perhaps speaks to the intense pressure and stress nurses are enduring at the moment, versus, the drawn-out periods of waiting that the non-medical population are experiencing. Continuing, Greeff informed me that the nurse in the piece had just been in attendance at the delivery of a baby and that, “with the people in the background, it kind of addresses the fear experienced by parents about whether they will get COVID and then also about the nurses fears – whether she will get COVID”. Hence, Greeff aims to draw attention not just to public fears, but also nurses’ fears, which have largely been delegitimized with the widespread use of the label ‘hero’.
Figure 1 - 'Nurse Hero'
As with ‘Nurse Hero’, in this series, Greeff tends to paint over photographs using vivid colours to obscure faces. On why she decided to do this, she said: “During the period Florence Nightingale was around, the late 1800s, that was a time when people would interfere with a photograph using water colours such to bring out and highlight certain details. In this case I am using oil paints to make them more vivid and colourful”. In this sense, Greeff’s artistic practice pulls past and present together, allowing them to bleed into one another, but in doing so, also allows room for the viewer to bring their own history to the painting.
In relation to the often vivid colouring of her artwork, I asked what informed her palette: “Often I work intuitively and, it sounds a bit nebulous, but quite often the painting will tell me what colour it wants to be and then I will work with that as opposed to forcing a particular colour or idea onto the painting. It will kind of unfold for me.” In respect to mediums, she said her choice will depend on the concept she is interrogating, for example, latex for themes of sexuality or organic chemistry salts when exploring gene-editing. In relation to the latter, she said: “I have found that when I mix water into those chemistry’s, little crystals form and they create a sort of visual representation of what genes might look like when under the microscope”. Greeff concluded that the medium both “carries the message and “informs the concept”.
Another of my personal favourites is ‘Nurses Night Off’ (see figure 2) where Greeff transports the nurse out of the clinical environment – one that is typically serious and sterile – to one of that is wild and chaotic. Partnered with this, Greeff herself features in the painting along with some of her good friends. When asked why she chose to go beyond the medical sphere in this piece she laughed as she recalled the painting – remembering a happy memory from her time as a nurse. Answering, she said: “I am really trying to move the stereotype of the nurse from sitting in one register to showing that these are people who have lives – they are fun and like to have a bit of a party. People like to plug nurses into a pigeonhole and view them as only caring, kind, and benevolent. But, while yes, they are all of that, they are also fun-loving”. Discussing the piece used on the front of the catalogue, ‘Tania’ (see Figure 3), she said: “That is of a friend of mine who was so cheeky and in the image, I have added a cigarette, even though she never smoked, and these funky glasses – and now, years on, she just loves this piece – she says that it’s her alter ego”.
Figure 2 - 'Nurses Night Off'
Within society, the nurse has either been rendered invisible, or, as is currently occurring, elevated to ‘hero’ status. In her artworks however, Greeff tackles both conceptions as she makes the work of the nurse visible while also highlighting their ordinariness. In relation to nurses’ work going unnoticed, she said: “Back when I was a nurse in the 70s and 80s nurses really did not get much recognition – it wasn’t considered to be a highly esteemed profession at all. The patient’s image of the nurse does not always align with the actual person that's caring for them and this often means that the nurse gets overlooked". Here, Greeff refers to the often anonymous figure that nurses become as they waft through the wards caring for people, and, currently, as they act as conduits between patient and relative. With this in mind, Greeff aims to “depict nurses as human beings, as people with lives” and “celebrate nurses in a way that hails them and gives them the gratitude for what they are bringing now and have always brought”. Greeff’s work, in highlighting nurse’s full humanity, concomitantly illuminates their ordinariness, thereby working against the limiting ‘hero’ narrative. In relation to this, she said: “’Hero’ is a problematic word, yes. Largely speaking, my artwork is a play on the Banksy piece. I am trying to be very mindful of the fact that it is a problematic word but also attempting to show gratitude”.
Figure 3 - 'Tania'
While the inspiration for the nurses’ series originated during lockdown and is largely a commentary on the current situation endured by nurses during the COVID-19 pandemic, Greeff’s work speaks to a post-COVID world too, posing questions for a COVID-free future, with Greeff saying: “The immense sacrifices, invaluable care and boundless compassion that nurses continue to offer without restraint must be visualized and valorised. And with that in mind, as a society we would do well to ask the question ‘What do we want to want in a post COVID tomorrow?’ Is cold Capitalism going to be sufficient or do we want to harness the characteristics of compassion, kindness and benevolence embodied in the nurse image?”
'Benevolence Has a Face'
Thus, Greeff’s work aims to make the work of the nurse, typically invisible and thankless, visible and celebrated. In many ways, the nurse as healthcare-hero has become its own stereotype, and so, Greeff challenges both this and that of the nurse being a two-dimensional character. She explores the work and lives of nurses through a different lens, giving gratitude in a humanistic way as she shies away from imposing superhuman qualities onto them. Further, in flooding the imagery with colour and emotion, she allows the viewer to bring their own narrative to the work. Overall, her series, in highlighting all that is both wonderful and ordinary about nurses, serves as inspiration and food-for-thought as we move gradually into a post-covid world. While ‘hero’ is indeed unfitting, perhaps we could all learn a little something from the humanity of nurses.