Art & Medicine Archive – 2018
December 6, 2018
Balancing Act
by Elena Johnson
Artist Elena Johnson discussed “Balancing Act” with Elizabeth C. Ortiz, MD, Assistant Professor of Medicine, Division of Rheumatology. She spoke about how rheumatoid arthritis has focused her work on the body. This exhibit spoke to the challenges she faces doing what she loves, while balancing the erratic symptoms of an aggressive disease and its medication side effects.
Event Recording
October 10, 2018
Scarred for Life
by Ted Meyer
Keck School of Medicine Artist-in-Residence Ted Meyer discussed this 20-year project “Scarred for Life, Every Scar Tells a Story,” with Dr. Susan Downey, plastic surgeon, and Adjunct Associate Professor of Medical Education. Through his art-making, photography and stories, Ted portrays the beauty and humor of physicality while exploring narratives of the human condition.
Event Recording
August 13, 2018
Paths of Life
by Alexandra Rutsch Brock
Artist Alexandra Rutsch Brock discussed her series entitled, “Paths of Life” with D. Enrique Ostrzega, Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine and Chair of the Year II Cardiovascular System. She had Patent Ductus Arteriosis surgery in 1973 at the age of four and was strongly impacted by the experience. Spending almost two weeks in the hospital made strong visual memories that she used in the creation of mixed media works on paper and canvas. These artworks combine image and text of her remembrance of the event and how it relates to both past and present experiences.
Event Recording
April 19, 2018
Compromised Perception
by Jane Szabo and J. Fredrick May
Artist Alexandra Rutsch Brock discussed her series entitled, “Paths of Life” with D. Enrique Ostrzega, Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine and Chair of the Year II Cardiovascular System. She had Patent Ductus Arteriosis surgery in 1973 at the age of four and was strongly impacted by the experience. Spending almost two weeks in the hospital made strong visual memories that she used in the creation of mixed media works on paper and canvas. These artworks combine image and text of her remembrance of the event and how it relates to both past and present experiences.
Artists Jane Szabo and J. Fredric May share their unique visions of people and faces. Both Szabo and May have chosen to use photography to document their perceptions of the outside world, compromised by facial blindness and stroke respectively.
Jane Szabo is a Los Angeles based fine art photographer with an MFA from Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA. Szabo investigates issues of self and identity. Using self-portraiture and still life as a vehicle to share stories from her life, her work merges her love for fabrication and materials, with conceptual photography.
J. Fredric May suffered a major stroke during open heart surgery in 2012 leaving him legally blind and subject to vivid visual hallucinations. This life event changed his artistic vision, opening up an entirely new visual style. Using a data corruption software, May recreates fragmented, blurry images as archival pigment prints that mimic the interrupted brain activity he experienced firsthand.
Additional works by Tylar Ard, Andrea Bañuelos Mota, Alice Liu, Divya Patel, Kristine Ravina, MD., James Stanis, and Kella Vangsness.
Event Recording
January 24, 2018
GI Art Show and Discussion
with Daniel Leighton and Sydney Snyder
Artists Daniel Leighton, Sydney Snyder and Dr. Andrew Ippoliti, Associate Chief of Gastroenterology/Liver discuss art, life and gastrointestinal issues with Ted Meyer at Keck School of Medicine at USC.