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When confronted with trauma, one might have different responses: to react and hope for an immediate fix; or to wait, gather information and make an informed decision. Reflecting back on his husband Ian Lewandowski ’s past cancer diagnosis, Cudahy compares the news of the pandemic to a perpetual waiting room. The purgatorial space is a common theme in Cudahy’s paintings, often showing figures waiting, or sometimes completing a lengthy task.

In Painful Unknotting, a woman sits at a table with a knotted rope and a knife. She has dedicated herself to the unknotting of this rope, the escape of a …