The Human Infrastructure is a portrait project honoring the networks of care that sustain us in moments of crisis. Through painted portraits of friends, family, neighbors, and medical professionals, the work makes visible the often unseen systems of human support that enable recovery, endurance, and hope. Rather than focusing on a single heroic narrative, the project centers collective effort — care as something shared, built, and carried by many people over time.

The project emerged following artist Vincent Serritella’s diagnosis with stage four brain cancer in December 2025. During 20 days in the hospital in San Francisco, which included two surgeries and two procedures, and throughout the ongoing period of recovery at home, Serritella was supported by a wide constellation of people. Each contributed in different ways — through medical expertise, practical help, emotional presence, or simple acts of consistency. Together, they formed what this project names as a human infrastructure: a living system of care without which recovery would not have been possible.

Those Who Carried Me serves as the project’s guiding acknowledgment. For each portrait, Serritella meets with the individual in person and paints their likeness without the use of photographs. These one-on-one sessions create space for presence, conversation, and shared time, allowing the work to register something beyond physical resemblance. The portraits are painted on vintage paper from 1967, inherited from Serritella’s mentor and the artist Don Kunz of New York, who passed away in 2001. In this way, the project extends care across generations — each work carrying not only a likeness, but a lineage of support, mentorship, and human connection.