Colin Crotty (b. 1974) At First the Infant

In this interior scene, Colin Crotty captures the visit of a community health nurse to a mother and newborn child. The nurse is positioned sitting at the centre of the painting offering advice and reassurance to a young mother who tenderly cradles her infant. The everyday setting could be that of a public medical centre or a private home. The mother’s buttercup yellow top contrasts with the salmon pink, pale blue and cream colours elsewhere in the composition including the unusual presence of a glowing orb on
the top left magically shifting us from inside to outside view.

As in all of the paintings in this series, Crotty’s figures are unidentifiable as individuals. The artist’s goal was to present the essence of the nurses’ professional day to day experiences rather than one particular story or person. He does, however, centrally frame the community healthcare worker, placing her coloured silhouette against a landscape painting, evoking the primary role that she plays in these critical first steps of maternal care.