The Concept of Pain as a Landscape
Pain is often described as a feeling, a sensation, or something that simply “hurts.” But what if pain was more than that? What if pain could be mapped, visualised, understood in layers—like a landscape shaped by time, pressure, and emotion?
For years, I have lived inside a body that carries pain in ways that are difficult to explain with words alone. My pain moves, shifts, and reacts—not just to my body but to the world around me. It is an earthquake, a tsunami, a system beyond my control. And through art, I have found a way to see it, translate it, and begin to understand it.
This is not just a story about symptoms or medical history. It is a story about how pain lives in the body, how it interacts with the mind, and how it can be transformed into something more.
The First Shock – The CSF Leak & Realisation of Change
In 2014, after stepping off a plane, my life changed. I developed a cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) leak, leaving me unable to stand without excruciating pain at the base of my skull. For three months, I could not walk. For two weeks, I lay in a hospital bed, trying to understand what was happening to me. When I was lying flat, the pain disappeared; when I stood up, it was unbearable.
I drew my first major pain image at the airport, waiting for a flight, after taking Diazepam to calm my system down.
The image is a maze of emotion and mechanism. My neck and skull are being pulled down, as if by invisible strings tightening beyond their limit—guitar strings stretched to the point of snapping. Control and emotion sit at the base of my skull, pulling downward like a weight that cannot be lifted. The intricate, mechanical details of the image reflect how I began to see my body—as something systematic, struggling between function and restriction. This was the moment I realised my pain wasn’t just a passing condition. It had structure. It had permanence. It had changed me.
The Earthquake – The Origin of Pain & The Rupture
Pain does not just appear—it erupts. It has an epicentre, a fault line, a place where pressure builds until something breaks.
When I feel pain, I often think of it as an earthquake. The place where I feel the pain is not necessarily where it started—the epicentre is often hidden, deep within. The pressure builds for days, months, even years, until the body has no choice but to release it.
This image captures the raw, unpredictable force of pain. The deep fractures running through it resemble fault lines—my body’s weak spots, grinding under unseen pressure. It is the rupture, the moment pain forces itself into existence.Some areas of the drawing are structured, held together, while others are chaotic and broken apart—just like how some pain feels manageable, while other pain takes over completely. The earthquake is not just physical—it is emotional. Every crack, every shift, is a reminder that pain is never isolated. It moves through time and space, leaving behind instability even after the shaking stops.
The Tsunami – How Pain Moves Through the Body (Top Left Image – The Tsunami of Pain)
Pain does not stay in one place—it moves. Like a tsunami, the wave does not crash where the earthquake happened.The pain spreads, triggered by external forces, stress, movement, or even emotions.
This image is about the aftermath—the wave of pain that follows the initial rupture. I see pain as a force that doesn’t just stay where it begins but carries through the body like floodwater, seeking weak spots to exploit. The puzzle pieces within the drawing represent tectonic plates, shifting, colliding, causing internal disruption. At the back of the neck—the place where I feel the world enters me—the first signs of the tsunami begin. It is the weak spot, the entry point where external stress becomes internal pain. The movement in the drawing mirrors what I feel inside—a pain that comes from somewhere else, yet consumes everything in its path.
The Body as an Emotional Map (New Image – Mapping Pain & Emotion)
Pain does not just live in muscles or nerves—it is stored in the body, embedded in different organs, shaping our experience of emotion and memory.
In this image, each word is placed along the body's core, aligning with areas that symbolically resonate with emotions, reflecting how pain and emotion intertwine. The brain holds overthinking and anxiety; the chest tightens with grief and stress; the stomach clenches with fear. Each part of the body holds a different weight, a different story. This is not just about pain as a sensation, but pain as something the body remembers, something it carries even when the moment has passed.
Understanding pain as a map allows me to see patterns—to recognise where emotions settle, where stress lingers, and how trauma manifests physically. Pain is not random. It follows a path. And in mapping it, I am one step closer to understanding how to navigate it.
The Planes of Pain – The Space Between Pain & Awareness
After the earthquake and tsunami, what comes next? Reflection.
This is what I explore in my final piece—the idea that there is a space between pain and understanding. That space is time.
I call it The 13th Hour.
The drawing is layered, divided into planes that represent different levels of experience—physical, emotional, and mental. But between them, there is space. And within that space, there is time. The 13th hour is a moment that exists outside of structured time, an opportunity to listen to the body. It is the place where pain is not just endured, but studied, questioned, and understood. It is where I begin to see the difference between pain and suffering—where I recognise that while pain may be constant, my relationship to it does not have to be.
The Future of Pain – Turning Suffering into Art
I don’t want to just document pain—I want to study it, translate it, and create a new language for it.
I aim to expand this work—applying to places like the Wellcome Institute to explore the intersection of art, health, and the human body.
Some of the canvases I want to create include:
“The Journey of Pain” – Mapping pain as a road through the body.
“The Fascial Hold of Anxiety” – Exploring how fascia stores trauma.
“The Spacesuit of a Panic” – A visual interpretation of being trapped in anxiety.
“The Road of the Nerves” – Charting the nervous system’s role in chronic pain.
“The Reflection of Body & Earth” – Connecting the human body’s pain to natural disasters and landscapes.
Pain is not just suffering—it is information. It has a language, a movement, and a shape.
Through art, I am learning to see pain differently. And in doing so, maybe I can help others do the same.
By Robert Paul