“Finding Your Self”

Finding Your Self, 2019

Here is the final version of this 5 month (!!!) long project.

As a refresher, it is based on a closeup microscopy image of a retina, which is responsible for our sense of vision. The blue branches are blood vessels. The red strands are axons of neurons that transmit the information from our eyes to the brain. The orange beads are cells in the background and the green cells are glia that support and nourish the neurons.

Following the theme from my previous works, I have incorporated a white jewel in the background, which represents hope that we can find deep within ourselves. Related works include “Hope” and “Lost in Manhattan”.

People often talk about eyes being the “mirrors into the soul”. Can we use an image of an eye as a metaphor for self-reflection? How do we view ourselves? How do we view the outside world? In choosing the location for the “hope” jewel, I decided to place it very close to the convergence point of neuronal axons; this is where they exit the eye and enter the optic nerve. Due to the lack of photoreceptors in this area of the retina, it is often referred to as the “blind spot”. When it comes to self-reflection, we are often blind to both our beauty and our flaws, our strengths and our weaknesses. And this is also where hope can arise – deep within.