Published: March 31, 2026
Author: Do Good Crew with David Begnaud
Website: thedogoodcrew.com
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Portraits Of Care
I want to spotlight an amazing artist named Vincent Serritella, who has turned a debilitating brain cancer diagnosis into a wellspring of creativity – a project that is just not therapeutic for him, but honors the people who are dedicating their time, money, and expertise to his survival.
That outpouring of love moved Vincent – a painter who has had multiple gallery showings and was an animator with stints at Pixar and Sony Pictures Animation – to show his gratitude in the only way he knew “how to express something that was almost impossible to articulate”: his art.
The Heart
Knowing that he could be on borrowed time, Vincent set out to thank “the community that came out to really put me on the right path to recovery” with a new project called The Human Infrastructure – portraits of the family, friends, neighbors, and medical professionals that have helped him during his ordeal. That could’ve been anything from brain surgery to doing household chores. No task was too small for recognition. The paintings represent a collage of the collective effort it takes to care for one person.
In Vincent’s own words, that includes:
Dr. Zhang (neurosurgeon – portrait below): “Dr. Michael Zhang is the neurosurgeon who delivered my diagnosis to me and my wife – and ultimately saved my life by performing a successful resection. What made his studio visit even more surreal is that just four months ago, he was standing over me in an operating room, looking inside my skull - and now here I am, painting his portrait. I was deeply moved by his willingness to step into my world, to connect, and to share in conversation about the paths that brought us both here.”
Alessandro (friend – bearded man in red shirt on wall of portraits): “Alessandro is not a neighbor or family member, but someone my wife Marissa and I came to know through his Italian restaurant in Sausalito. When he learned of my diagnosis, he was deeply saddened. Knowing that family had come in from out of town to stay with us while I recovered, he brought over pizza, lasagna, salad, appetizers, and bottles of wine. Since then, Alessandro continues to check in on me, personally delivers food, and even keeps an eye out for imported extra virgin olive oil from Italy.”
Maykao (neighbor – woman in gray sweater on wall of portraits): "Maykao – whose compassion, support, and kindness have meant so much to my recovery – had never been portrayed in a work of art before. After I finished her portrait, she shared how moved she was – not just by the likeness, but by the experience itself. She mentioned that she had never truly seen herself in this way before, and how meaningful it was to sit with me, observe the process, and be part of something so personal.”
Sitting with subjects for almost two hours, Vincent gets intimate time to talk with them, thank them, and paint a portrait that reflects how he sees them, however skewed by his impaired eyesight they may be. Their power. Their selflessness. Their fortitude. It’s a thanks with a paintbrush.
And for Vincent, the portraits are a form of therapy for the vision he lost after surgery. The goal of the paintings is not to create a perfect physical representation of the subject, but to illustrate a subjective, emotional representation of who they are. For many subjects, especially Vincent’s nurses, it was the first time they had ever truly “seen” themselves.
Marissa (Vincent’s wife), Vincent, and Dr. Michael Zhang (Vincent’s neurosurgeon)
Portrait of Dr. Michael Zhang
The Journey
It’s a testament to his recovery that Vincent can paint at all. Last December, Vincent started seeing strange artifacts in his vision and a loss of sight in his left eye. A trip to the eye doctor frantically escalated to an emergency MRI at the hospital, where it was discovered he had a brain tumor and was diagnosed with glioblastoma. What followed was a 20-day ICU stay with nonstop procedures and surgeries. In a blink, his life had totally altered.
The prognosis for glioblastoma is brutal… and, as a healthy 50-year-old, Vincent expected he would have a lot more life to live. But Vincent wasn’t alone in the struggle. His wife, Marissa, his sister-in-law, Jill, and countless others in Vincent’s life sprang into action to care for, support, and advocate for him. They set up fundraisers, connected with nonprofits, and organized teams for tumor walks.
Vincent’s care is the embodiment of the phrase “It takes a village…”
The Takeaway
Vincent has so far completed 21 portraits of a planned 40, with hopes of either presenting them at a gallery or publishing them in a book. Just like his cancer journey, he’s early in this process, and is simply reacting to how it develops… with gratitude for each new day and each new subject he gets to paint.
As Vincent told us: “As terrible as this whole diagnosis has been, there's also a blessing in it that I'm given this opportunity to kind of one-by-one go through everyone and express my gratitude and share how thankful I am for who they are and how they've shown up when I've needed them.”
To me, that’s surviving to the fullest.