You Can Speak to Him Too

You Can Speak to Him Too

Digital Illustration, 2023

Created and described by Ben O’Brien (Ben the Illustrator).

[street noise with footsteps, wind and traffic throughout]

The illustration depicts a simple scenario with three men. It is a flat, graphic illustration with minimal details and textures. One man is standing alone on the left of the illustration. He has brown hair and is wearing a casual blue sweater and black trousers. He has smart white shoes, and he is facing the other two men. 

The two men are on the right-hand side of the illustration, making their way towards the man on the left. 

[wheelchair moving along the pavement]

One of the two men together is a wheelchair user, an older man with grey hair, and the other is a younger man with ginger hair, a beard and glasses; the younger man is pushing the wheelchair. 

[the man’s footsteps]

The older man using the wheelchair is wearing a black sweater, blue trousers and brown shoes. The younger man is wearing a black hooded sweater, dark green trousers and white sneakers.

The man on the left is speaking, which is indicated by a speech bubble. 

[wheelchair fades out, indistinct distant voices fade in]

The speech bubble only contains three dots to represent speech; there are no actual words. He is speaking directly to the young man pushing the wheelchair as their heads are at the same height. He is not bending or looking downwards to speak to the wheelchair user.

[voices fade]

The background is a flat pink, split into two lighter and darker tones. It is split horizontally just below the heads of the two men who are conversing, the man on the left and the younger man on the right. The split in the background helps to show that the man on the left is speaking directly to the younger man walking and not the wheelchair user. Along the bottom of the illustration is a light brown strip, which depicts the street level that the three men are on.

The illustration is telling the story of the artist’s own experiences with his disabled father. Frequently, in public, people would ignore the father or not communicate with him directly and only communicate with the father’s family members.

[street noise fades]