Everlution

Everlution

Brush Ink and Digital Colouring, 2015

Created and described by Zara Slattery. 

Everlution is a lived experience and an autobiographical account of growing up, moving through life and the impact of a sudden, life-changing illness.

There are three horizontal rows of four panels, making a total of twelve panels. Each panel is the same width and varies slightly in height. They all have a pale ochre background and a single light-skinned female character with rosy cheeks, chestnut brown hair and a knee-length white dress. The white clothing represents the constancy of self as one walks differently through life's journey. 

[children playing in distance]

The top four panels depict the character's childhood, starting with a curly-haired baby crawling in a white nappy; in panels two, three and four, she has shoulder-length hair and moves from a walking toddler to a skipping child to a stepping youth with shoulders slightly hunched. All are in profile and are moving left to right. 

[slow footsteps]

The direction of travel symbolizes the natural progression through time and growth.

The middle four panels document the transition from health to sudden illness and the loss of a limb. 

[footsteps stop, heartbeat fades in]

The character is now a young woman with her hair in two buns. Walking in profile, continuing left to right, her posture is straight, her chin high. In the following panel, her hair is tied in a single bun, and she strides assuredly. The next panel, seven, shows her on her knees, lurching forward; the direction of her progression falters. 

[sighing]

Her hair has loosened, her cheeks are white, and her face is in shock. In panel eight, her body lies prostrate, face down, angled, across the base of the panel; with her head in the left-hand corner, her hair is long and loose across her back. She has one leg. 

Panels nine, ten, eleven and twelve document her adjustment to limb loss and rehabilitation. At the base of panel nine, she lies in profile, left to right, a small, thin figure stretched across the floor, her hand rests on her belly as she looks up at the emptiness of the panel above her. Next, she's sitting up, with back leaning against the right-hand side of the panel, and facing left. Her shoulders are hunched, and her hand rests beside the thigh of her remaining leg. Bald at the crown, her hair is shorter and falling out, and her cheeks are white.

To the right of panel eleven, she is a slim figure with cropped, thin hair. 

[heartbeat fades out, clacking crutches fade in]

Leaning on a zimmer frame, she's taking a cautious tip-toed step towards the foreground. Head down, as she focuses, her cheeks have a little colour again. In the final panel, continuing in the same direction, her hair is thick and wavy and has grown to her shoulders. She has put on weight and is making a confident hop with cuff crutches. Her cheeks are rosy once again.

[crutches fade]