A limited number of artisanal clamshell boxes that contain four handmade books wrapped and tied in hospital gowns. Plus a set of 18 prints.

Each of the four handmade books in this collection represents a unique individual cancer odyssey in my family including: my grandmother’s breast cancer, my sister’s ovarian cancer, my own pancreatic cancer and my son’s childhood leukemia. In the vast commercial enterprise that encompasses fundraising to fight cancer, each cancer has been assigned a Pantone color. Thus, the four small handmade books each represent the story of one illness in my family expressed in the Pantone color that has been assigned to the disease: pink for breast cancer, blue for ovarian cancer, purple for pancreatic cancer and gold for childhood cancer.

Using hospital gowns and material made from medical images of my own cancer slides, Nichols brings forth a beautiful, almost magical dress in which she makes mythical self-portraits. Through both the dress and portraits that she makes of herself in the dress, Nichols seeks to deconstruct the experience of illness taking it from ill-lit hospital rooms to the garden and the forest.