My practice explores the beauty and complexity of cancer
cells, an aggressive, frightful disease that humans don’t normally associate
with beauty. By doing my own research on the cells, I am looking into the way
the cells move and develop within the body, attempting to understand it through
visual representation. I prefer to work in installation or large scale oil
paintings, rendered in a surrealistic manner; this assists in creating an
experience that the viewer cannot ignore.
It’s Not Benign is
a large scale oil painting that focuses on the initial take over of the body as
the cancer cells spread in unknown directions. In many cases it is hard to
discern where the caner is moving to; the dark, unknown seemingly bottomless
space in the middle of the painting depicts this.
I am drawn to this subject as I have had my own experience
fighting cancer. I began to read a book on the disease after my diagnosis since
I was interested in its history of human’s developing knowledge of the disease.
Today I am greatly influenced by it: The
Emperor of all Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee. The book tells the
gruesome “biography” of sorts about the progression of human’s knowledge of
what we perceive cancer to be. From the Egyptians believing it was black bile,
to doctors believing in radical surgeries to extract the cancer, these forms of
treatment correlating with our understanding of what it truly is has
drastically changed over time, and even today it’s a puzzle we seem to be
missing a few pieces of. But I always wonder if we will ever fully understand
the living organism within us. Will we ever find those missing pieces? Like any
living organism, it can evolve and adapt to its environment. Which leads me to
a theory I have discovered while doing some research.
This new piece, The
Decline looks into a new theory called the Decline Effect, founded by
Jonathan Schooler’s, a psycologist who has devoted much of his career to debunking
this strange phenomenon. This surprising trend deals with the instability of
something we have always thought to be solid, the scientific method. The
Decline Effect challenges it’s consistency and accuracy as time progresses. The
more studies done on some theories, the less accurate or clear the original
conclusion becomes. The Decline challenges
the idea that the theories we know to be true, in the case of my piece, with
cancer cells, may not be as clear as we think.
I have a growing interest in perceptions, space and time.
With this in mind, rather than a relying on a large painting with significant
detail to draw the viewer in, I am experimenting with various technologies,
incorporating animation to create a moving painting and utilizing ideas of
installation to bring the viewer into a greater submersive experience. Slowly
the image of my painting of It’s Not
Benign becomes more and more ambiguous until it seems to create fractal
like forms, a pattern in nature that mathematicians and scientists have
discovered and use to measure irregular forms, even in developing cancers. As
the piece becomes less clear from the fractal forms and begins to blur, it is
visually representing the question the Decline Effect presents for these
theories and their authenticity. Finally ending with the white blur reversing
back to its original form. Just as the scientists have done who have run into
the Decline Effect, reviewing every aspect of their studies, only to find
themselves stuck in a loop of declining information, review, and decline once
again, never fully able to understand this phenomenon.
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