“Wow, that looks just like my tumor,” she said, “I love it!”
That may seem like an unusual reaction to a painting, but it’s far from the first time I’ve heard this about my work.
I show my art in a wide variety of settings, from galleries and art festivals to scientific meetings. When I show art at science conferences, as I will at the Society for Neuroscience meeting in Chicago next month, my audience is mostly researchers, who are intrigued by art inspired by their area of study. But the people who are most deeply touched and amazed by my work are the ones I meet, often at small, neighborhood art shows, who are personally affected by conditions related to the subjects of my paintings. They are not expecting to see anything like my art, and yet they immediately recognize in it something they know on a very personal level. Like the woman whose (successfully removed) brain tumor looked just like one of my ink paintings.
It's undeniable that the flowing movement of ink on wet yupo often creates shapes that look like encapsulated masses or bleeds, like things you might see on a brain scan. People who have experienced tumors or hemorrhages react to these pieces in ways that range from “yikes” to “wow, that’s beautiful!” to just standing and staring. And then often by sharing their deeply personal stories with me, a stranger.
Art about a medical condition that has shaped a life, through suffering and healing, is a very special thing to create. Many people over the years have bought or commissioned EKG watercolors from me because they have a particular abnormal heart rhythm that they want to memorialize, or because they want to celebrate surviving a heart attack. I’ve even created watercolors of eye cells that someone donated to help another person see.
At my last show, I met both a young woman whose brain has an unusual anatomical structure and a retired pathologist with a collection of thousands of glass microscope slides with specimens that he was excited to share. I look forward to a potential collaboration based on this new knowledge and wealth of images.
Making art can be a solitary pursuit, so unexpected personal connections like this are tremendously powerful. Creating work that speaks to someone who has experienced some aspect of it in their body is a unique and beautiful thing, and I am so grateful that I get to do it.
Where to find me
If you’re in the Washington, DC area, you can find me next at the Downtown Hyattsville Arts Festival in Hyattsville, Maryland on September 21.
After that, I’ll be at the Society for Neuroscience Meeting in Chicago from October 5-9. If you’re registered for the conference, you can find me (and a bunch of other neuro-inspired artists) at the Art of Neuroscience zone near the exhibits hall.
As always, you can shop online. Please note that my online shop will be closed from September 22-30 and October 5-10.
The Art of Neuroscience sounds fascinating…and that a scientific conference is including it…!! Congrats on being a part of it, can’t wait to hear more about it 😃