I should have been a statistic. On May 19 of this year an 18-year-old, driving the wrong way at forty miles an hour, hit me head-on. The paramedics told me later that accidents like that carry a one-in-thirty survival rate—and of those thirty, most leave the scene with brain damage or paralysis. I walked out of the truck coughing air-bag dust, coherent enough to clock the absurdity of my very first thought: “I still haven’t painted Eggplant Jesus.”

 

That single line became a lifeline. It dragged me through the ER, the CT scans, and two nights in the trauma unit. When the nurses finally cut the plastic ID band from my wrist I kept it, slid it into a pocket, and went home to the studio. Twenty-four hours later the canvas was stretched; on the fourth night the last layer of paint was drying. I’d never finished a painting that fast in my life, but the idea had already survived a collision—why make it wait?

 

The painting is half self-portrait, half inside joke with the universe. A bulbous purple form— equal parts bruised flesh and grocery-store emoji—floats in the center, tilted like a baroque saint. A loose mandorla of neon chartreuse surrounds it, radiating that sickly hospital-hallway light. The brushwork vibrates: strokes laid down with the shaky, post-adrenaline hand of someone who keeps replaying the crash at 120 fps. Look closely and you’ll spot the hospital bracelet, epoxied into the under-paint on the lower right—my proof of purchase for an extra life.

 

If the piece feels funny at first glance, good; humor kept me upright. But spend time with the surface and you’ll see the darker frequencies—cracks where the paint dried too quickly, hairline graphite notes never fully erased, a faint red scumble the color of a fresh seat-belt bruise. Self-Portrait is a reminder that art can be equal parts guardian angel and gallows comedian. It’s the painting I literally thought I’d die without making, finished before the bruises even had time to bloom.