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• Dim (cm): 122x122cm
• Dim (in): 48 x 48in
• Relative Size: Medium
• Aspect Ratio: Square
• Year (If Known): 2021
• Media: Painting / Mixed Media
  
• Substrate: Primed Canvas
  
• Palette:  Predominantly gray, black, white, muted dry gold, buff, parchment
  
• Theme:  The scientific significance of Chromosome marker 4p16.3 for Huntington's Disease research
  
• Original or Edition: Original (1 of 1)
• Condition: Excellent
• Stretched (Y/N): Yes
• Framed (Y/N):   Gallery wrap
  
• Frame Type: None Required, ready to hang
  
• With Glass (Y/N): Not required
  
• Normal Shipping: Reinforced Carton

JP Paul worked as a news correspondent and photojournalist for several Caribbean and South America media outlets during the mid 80s to early 90s. One of his most significant projects involved reporting on a team of North American and Venezuelan academic researchers and scientists led by Dr. Nancy Wexler who sought to discover the gene responsible for Huntington's disease in a series of studies over several decades that would hopefully aid ongoing research into several neurodegenerative diseases, including Huntington's, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. Crucial to their studies of gene/DNA identification were a series of small villages in western Venezuela that had some of the largest concentrations of Huntington's gene-carrying inhabitants in the world. While one of 10,000 persons carry the Huntington's gene in the general public, in these villages the ration was closer to one in ten.

After comparing thousands of gathered blood tests, Chromosome marker 4p16.3 proved to be extremely important as the critical location where the Huntington's gene mutation was eventually confirmed.

Through conversations with the Wexler research team and affected villagers, the inevitability and helplessness were clear. Key to the research was discovering as many close family connections as possible in order to determine and track the likelihood of inheritance. This of course led to the downside of despair knowing that every discovery of another affected person that benefited the research also represented one more person who almost assuredly would not lead a full, normal life in the advanced stages of the disease. The villagers were equally conflicted. By this time they were keenly aware of their importance to science. Despite their willingness to help find a cure for Huntington's, what most of them really wanted was to escape the stigma of being deemed unworthy of partnership with no hope of a prosperous future. They sought to experience normality, including their hunt for unaffected partners offering futures filled with happiness rather than fading hope. Many left their families and fled their villages with faint dreams of out-running the ominous symptoms of the disease. This dispersion threatened the concentrations required for successful research. It also created the possibility that the disease would spread to other regions of Venezuela as Huntington's carriers began to mate with previously unaffected persons from other villages.

Even after the gene location was confirmed, the research team continued to return to offer support for the remaining families. JP Paul developed a lifelong emotional connection with people living with this incurable disease. After his mother also died after a long battle with another neurodegenerative disease, the them has often been referenced in his visual art and written work. Based on the back story and the push-pull nature of the content, the artist considers this piece to be one of his most significant since the introspective 20/20 series.

This work's complex base features JP Paul's signature multi-layered textural abstraction that has dominated much of his mixed-media paintings since  2015. He then combines the starkly minimalist graphic content more akin to the socially conscious street artists.