A solitary figure rendered in Marcel Dzama's unmistakable visual language anchors this 2011 work on paper, combining India ink, watercolour, and graphite to produce the muted, theatrically eerie atmosphere for which the Winnipeg-born artist is widely celebrated. The title, "The back bone of contagious disease," carries the deadpan surrealism that pervades Dzama's practice, suggesting biological dread and systemic fragility through language as loaded as the image itself. Flat areas of washed colour sit alongside precise graphic linework, the whole composition mounted on card in a manner consistent with Dzama's meticulous approach to works on paper. Dzama emerged in the late 1990s through the collective Raymond Pettibon-influenced milieu of the Royal Art Lodge, and by 2011 his work had achieved significant institutional and market recognition, entering major collections internationally and earning sustained representation through David Zwirner. This piece belongs to a body of intimate, hand-scaled drawings that reward close attention, where folkloric costume, ambiguous ritual, and dark humour converge into imagery that feels at once childlike and deeply unsettling. At 35.5 by 28 centimetres, the work is characteristic of his preferred drawing format, modest in scale yet dense with associative meaning. Signed lower right, the work presents a strong acquisition opportunity for collectors focused on contemporary drawing or on artists who occupy the intersection of illustration, performance, and conceptual practice. Dzama's works on paper have consistently performed well at auction, and signed examples from this period, when his thematic vocabulary was particularly refined, are considered among the more desirable entries into his catalogue.