Artist Carl Rolfe's new exhibition started in a Bendigo emergency room.
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He had suffered headaches for months, but the constant pain had not cured his hate for doctor's waiting rooms.
"I managed to keep him seated for a while and but eventually he just got up and he was going to walk right out of the emergency room," Rolfe's partner, Zerin Knight, said. "But I knew something was seriously wrong."
She was right. Rolfe would be diagnosed with Stage 4 Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) in April 2023, a terminal brain cancer.
Rolfe was given 12 months to live. He died on January 12, 2024. Ms Knight said Bohemian Rhapsody, one of his favourites songs, was playing when he passed.
The 10 months worth of treatment became the subject of Glioblastoma: Dead Centre of Brain, Rolfe's final exhibit of digital artwork, drawings and sculpture, opening at Dudley House on Saturday, February 24.
A tribute to his partner
Ms Knight said their life together was filtered through Rolfe's drive to create art. At night he would lock himself in his studio to work until the early hours of the morning.
"He did the same during his treatment," she said. "That is how driven he was to produce artwork."
At news of his diagnosis, Rolfe decided he would document his experience so, if anything, Ms Knight might be able to auction works for sale after he died. The exhibition, in some ways, is a tribute to her.
"So I think that gave him purpose," Ms Knight said.
The artworks span moments of trauma and beauty throughout his last months, from loving sketches of Ms Knight asleep by Rolfe's bedside, to expressions of radiotherapy while wearing a constricting face mask.
Other pieces depict nurses in dog costumes, hallucinations Rolfe experienced while he received treatment.
Artworks 'a part of' Rolfe
Ms Knight said the artworks were sometimes difficult to for her to look at, a time capsule of memories from the year where she lost her partner.
"But it is special to me that he felt driven to produce these works because he was thinking of me," she said.
"And it's not the actual brain tumour that we are seeing. It's representations of his experiences.
"And I was witness to those experiences. So in that sense the exhibition is very special to me."
For his final Christmas present, Ms Knight named a star after Rolfe so she could "look up at his (star) at night' and remember him.
"It will always be with me ... he is still with me," she said.
Ms Knight said his artworks would have the same effect.
"They are a part of him. Such a big part of him."
Glioblastoma: Dead Centre of Brain will be at Dudley House, 60 View Street, Bendigo 10am to 5pm daily from February 24 to February 29.
