Optics: The Physics of Perception

This is another piece where I used actual fMRI images of my own head as reference. As a visual artist, I am extremely concerned with both the physics & biology of vision as well as the concept of seeing. The term optics can refer to both the physics of light, and to the subjective appearance of something. Good or bad optics change the way people feel about eachother and the world. I'm very interested in exploring the idea that light carries more information to our minds than just the frequencies of the photons would suggest.

Using plastic, wood, and screws, this mixed-media piece deconstructs the physics and biology of visual perception. A transparent plastic overlay represents the anatomy of the eye in crossection (cornea, lens, orb & optic nerve), hovering above the surface of the painted panel. By letting the illustration of the eye literally transmit light, it becomes a structure that information freely passes through. The cone of vision, filled with individual points of color representing photons, is less than geometrically perfect. Lastly, up in the visual cortex I have left a placeholder. This is the missing piece.

Gestalt & Cognitive Closure

On the surface, I'm conflating the two ideas of cognitive closure (the psychological need for resolution after trauma) and the Gestalt principle of visual closure. Visual closure is rather simple: our minds complete lines and shapes that are visually interrupted. In the painting, I'm invoking this concept by outlining the figure's silhouette with a dashed line.

Cognitive closure, on the otherhand, can be a very painful. My need for cognitive closure relates to the loss of my best friend, some years ago. The loss was sudden, and I was young and unprepared to understand or process it. As far as I know, there was no public funeral. Every few years, I search for old obituaries as if to prove to myself he really is gone. He still visits me in dreams.

Jonathan Lasker said, "The viewer always completes the picture." What does that mean? The viewer is the last step needed to complete the meaning of an artwork. If that is true, I want to call upon the viewer's ability to visually close forms, to complete the form of my missing best friend. I'm hoping the viewer can complete the picture and finally give me closure.

Action Potential: Anatomy of Anxiety

This work combines a self-portrait, based on my own fMRI cranial cross-section, with an oversized diagram of a neuron. By exposing the biological machinery (dendrites, axon terminals, and the cell body), I explore the concept of "action potential" not just as a voltage spike in signal transmission, but as a metaphor for personal potential energy. It visualizes the buzzing, anxious energy of the mind as a physical, electrical event.

The action potential is that subtle difference in electrical charge that allows the neuron to do its job: send a message. What is my potential energy? My life is full of buzzing, anxious energy that I cannot shake. So, at the same time that I am exploring the neurophysical reality, I'm also interrogating myself about my own potential.

Neurophilosophy & Cortical Localization

Created for GSU's Grey Matters neuroscience journal, these illustrations merge classical philosophical imagery with abstracted cortical localization diagrams. The works abstract the relationship between language, the foundation of philosophy, and the physical folds of the brain, questioning where the mind resides within the biological tissue.