Brain

I always start a painting by writing the word brain. This idea teeters on the line of playful and serious. I am intrigued by a four-step process alternating between the brain as a concrete and abstract object. I start concretely with the idea of brain the organ, the entity creating the story I am trying to tell. The next step is transferring the actual word brain on to the canvas. I view this step as illustrating the human linguistic abstraction of words representing real objects. On the canvas, the word brain becomes concrete again as a starting point in the visual organization of the structure and composition of the painting. I end this process with the painting as a painted abstract representation of the brain signifying the story with which I began. Here, specifically, the story is going to be about the brain in relation to humanity and how the uniqueness of this organ allows us to live the complex, interesting, lives that we live.

I think as I paint this, I might pick up The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins. It's a book about evolution, and I was told it might coincide well with my fascination with the idea of brain.

This painting is meant to be very simple visually. I am playing with the idea of changing the name to Flashcard 1. I might make this a series. I've chosen black helvetica on a white canvas because the look of it reminds me of the flashcards I can remember using growing up. Brain is the answer, but what is the question?