TJ Bateson, The two of us #01, 2023. Acrylic on linen, 168 x 138cm. Courtesy: the artist and Tacit Art, Melbourne.

The two of us is a deeply, deeply personal body of work following TJ Bateson‘s lifesaving bone marrow transplant this time last year. As he say’s in his initimable to-the-point way:

“Not dead, not broken but very much altered, I’m now the two of us. Loaded with a new immune system, powered by new blood and cancer-free after a ten year battle with Mantel Cell Lymphoma, all this made possible by a donation [of her bone marrow] from my daughter, May Rose.

In short, May’s bone marrow has replaced mine and I now make her blood to fuel my body. I have two DNAs coexisting together and a new immune system that won a battle against cancer that I alone could not.

Her presence within me is felt and reflected in this work through the abstracted layering of our DNA maps. This work explores this new internal and emotional relationship that exists within my new altered self. It is, indeed, the two of us.”

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