JB: While the self-portrait is a long standing
practice in art history, you’ve taken this idea a step
further, having the images of your own brain to
work with. How did you come to create your art of
the brain?
EJ: My journey as an artist began when I
suddenly lost the ability to speak. Surgeons
removed a part of my brain in order to determine the origin of my aphasia. I was subsequently diagnosed with multiple sclerosis
(MS), a verdict that ended my career as a
public interest lawyer. Since then, in order
to monitor the progress of the disease, I
have spent many hours in the darkness of
the scanning machine, the subject of innumerable Magnetic Resonance Imaging scans
(MRIs) of my brain. My diagnosis and treatment gave rise to a keen interest in medical
technology and inspired me to create images
that interpret medical images in a new light.
I consider MRI images one of the primary
symbols of many chronic and acute illnesses,
including MS, because MRI images are how
physicians and scientists track the progress
of the disease. Medical imaging renders the
brain transparent and provides an intimate
view of the brain’s interior structure. However, the images show a brain stripped of human emotions. My mission as an artist is to
provide a contrast to the cold, stark computer images while exploring personal reflections
within the self-portrait. While focusing on
medical imagery, I explore the intersection of
science and art, medical patient and person
(ie, son, daughter, mother, or father).
For the anxious patient, the MRI is ugly
and frightening—entering a coffin-sized machine and enduring hours of beeps and whirs.
Its resulting images fatefully bunch black
and grey pixels into a prognosis collected in
hollow, windowless rooms. I use art to expose
the beauty and intrigue of parts of the brain
in a way that people do not normally see in
exam rooms, or laboratories. I invite viewers to consider these images of the brain in
a light that includes personality and uniqueness, one which bluntly denies the sense of
being invaded by the medical technology
that can make patients feel reduced and
disconnected from their bodies, and their
unique sense of self. Brain scans produce
SciArt in America April 2014
black-and-white, naked simulacra that lack
emotional context. Yet the brain is the locus
of personality, of identity, of self. As an artist,
I reconstruct MRI images as visual relics of
the transformation of self, in the physical and
emotional sense.
Long before becoming an artist, as a lawyer
specializing in public health, I became fascinated by images of the brain. As a patient
I came to understand MRI images from a
new and deeply personal perspective: in my
hand I had concrete anatomical evidence
of my disease and its injury. Absent was any
acknowledgement of the richness of the
brain, the richness and uniqueness that was
my brain! And this is something I wanted to
celebrate, even in the face of my prognosis.
I first used silk painting to try to capture
the richness of the brain as I saw it, while
honoring the underlying scientific data. For
more anatomical accuracy, I began exploring
photopolymer intaglio—colloquially known
as solar plate etching—which uses a metal
plate coated with a light-sensitive gelatin.
Using my MRI images as a contact negative,
this process allows me to use my brain scans
most directly, creating clinical, ontological
images. Applying the finest French inks, I
give these images saturated, luscious color
that has become a defining characteristic of
my work.
By focusing on the internal and unseen, my
work expands the conventional definition of
portraiture, and challenges viewers to explore
the concept of self-identity beyond simple
external likeness. Through the act of manipulating my MRI images, I re-envision identity
and reclaim ownership of self. My passion lies
in creating art engendering the acceptance
of illness as a part of being human. At some
point in our lives, we all become patients and
my art also serves to explore and redefine
this experience for the medical community
and for the patient. I want my art to serve as
an alternate point of access for understanding the brain, as well as the technology that
allows us to see inside ourselves, in the literal
sense. My art embraces the cutting-edge
neuroimaging technologies available, while
humanizing the experience and its results.
23