I ground my work in the real, drawing from bones and cadaver dissections in the Anatomy Lab at NYU School of Medicine, and from cutting-edge 3D radiology images of my own body, made for my use as an artist. But my take on anatomy is personal and sensual, not medical. I work to evoke the textures of real flesh and bone, and reclaim the inner landscape.

Read the story behind the work (below slideshow)

Spinal cord (cauda equina) with nerve roots, 6.5 x 8.5 in., archival pigment print, 2011

Vertebrae from above, red-brown, 11 x 6.5 in., Twinrocker Rotunda, 2017

Lumbar vertebrae, anterior view, 8.5 x 11.25 in., Twinrocker Rotunda, 2015

Turning vertebrae with spinal nerves (red), 15 x 11 in., Twinrocker Rotunda, 2014

Curving lumbar vertebrae with nerve spaces, 9.5 x 11 in., Twinrocker Rotunda, 2018

Sacrum with emerging nerves, 11 x 6.5 in., Twinrocker Rotunda, 2017

Lumbar vertebrae (L3-4-5) with emerging nerves, 11+ x 7.5 in., Twinrocker Yale, 2016

Lung, opened, 9.25 x 12 in., Twinrocker Rotunda, 2012

Cerebrum, coronal view, with floating colors (rosy kozo), 10 x 12.25, archival pigment print, 2012

Arbor vitae of cerebellum, 9 x 11.5 in., Twinrocker, 2018

Arbor vitae with 4th ventricle (yellow), 10 x 6.5 in. on Twinrocker Yale, 2018

The story behind the art

When I began my Visible skeleton series, my references were the human skeleton and my own x-rays. But in 2008, I became an artist in the world of medicine and gained access to a whole new realm of anatomical reality.

The intricately intertwined muscles, tendons, blood vessels, and nerves I could see in the Anatomy Lab (like the inner structure of a lung, shown here) looked so different from the pictures in medical books, where the individual gives way to the generic, and the texture of real life is smoothed away.

turning spine+nerves-ALphoto+drawing.jpg

Now I could explore my curving spinal cord, and the spinal nerves that struggled to emerge from the narrowed spaces between my scrunched lumbar vertebrae.

In the 3D Lab, I rotated my CT scan images to look up into the spinal canal and the intervertebral openings at each lumbar level.

In the cadaver lab I could draw from the spinal cord and nerves, visualizing their pathways between brain and body. I even had my brain scanned for the purpose of art, and drew from brain specimens in the neuroanatomy lab, especially the cerebellum, source of movement and proprioception, with its beautiful arbor vitae (tree of life).

I love the contrast of high technology with hand making and traditional media. My drawings evolve slowly as I learn the anatomy in increasing depth and detail.

My spine’s lumbar curve developed to compensate for the thoracic one, in the body’s effort effort to bring itself into alignment and keep the eyes, shoulders, and pelvis level. What motivates this work of counter-balancing, and how does the body know how to do it?

In my latest drawings, I’ve been zooming in to explore that work – the body’s creativity – in more detail.

View my latest drawings of the spinal nerves and nerve landscapes