The Human Stain

Again apologies for a few lean months. I did stay in a French chateau in July that had some very troubling artworks, but that was a holiday, not business, and not really a hotel, so I don't think it really counted.

This, on the other hand...

Poster paint on card.30cm x 50cm

This is from my bathroom in a room at the InterContinental San Francisco. I am a chemist by training, and so my first thought was of carbon rings. But what might that signify?
The picture is annotated in pencil with what looks like 'Humangerm'. It isn't clear whether this enigmatic scribble is supposed to be a title for the work or a pseudonym for the artist or perhaps both. I was mystified, although my girlfriend perceptively suggested that - this being San Francisco - it might be a reference to AIDS. And indeed, there was another picture in the living room that shamefully I don't seem to have photographed that looked to me like atoms, but which could also look like virus particles.
It certainly has the feeling that it's meant to disquiet. But sharing a bathroom with a painting about AIDS is maybe a bit *too* disquieting.