“If you are depressed you are living in the past. If you are anxious you are living in the future. If you are at peace you are living in the present.”- Lao Tzu I recently heard this quote at it really resonated with me. Despite being a neuroscientist, I had a pretty hazy understanding of... Continue Reading →
Feeling aggressive? You’re not alone.
Last weekend, I was assaulted on the street in broad daylight. I was walking on the sidewalk and a woman crossed the street to come and yell at me for no reason. In more colorful language than I am willing to write here, she told me to get out of there, spit at me and... Continue Reading →
Why is art so rewarding to the brain?
Several years ago, I received a comment on my website stating that: Work and chores get done, because the world needs them to be done. #Art gets done because there is an internal need for it to happen.Tweet I grew up doing a lot of arts and crafts, which did not necessarily stem from the... Continue Reading →
Looking for inspiration for a new mental health SciArt series
This blog post was originally published on Lifeology on 7/16/20. For the past few months, I have been dabbling in small projects here and there, but have kind of put an unintentional hold on my real SciArt. Of course, I created the sculpture for “The Brain Project” for a summer exhibition in Toronto. But otherwise... Continue Reading →
Stages of grief in times of COVID-19
When somebody mentions the "stages of grief", what comes to mind? Is it necessarily death or the loss of a loved one? Is it necessarily tied to losing a person (or perhaps pet), or can it be applicable to inanimate things as well? For example, could it be related to a certain stage in your... Continue Reading →
Using SciArt to battle stress and find hope
This blog post was originally published on Lifeology on 5/10/20. Art has at least seven different functions, according to Alain de Botton and John Armstrong’s “Art as Therapy”: 1) Remembering, 2) Hope, 3) Sorrow, 4) Rebalancing, 5) Self-Understanding, 6) Growth, and 7) Appreciation. Art helps us to remember the past, hope for something better and process our feelings. Last year, before hearing about... Continue Reading →
Art as Therapy
In November 2019, I was invited as one of the speakers at the SciVizNYC Symposium at my grad school alma mater - Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. The program gathered people from a wide array of professions, ranging from surgeons to medical illustrators to fine artists, and gave a great overview of how... Continue Reading →
Scientist’s lab notebook vs. artist’s sketchbook
Recently, Darcy and I have been discussing the parallel aspects that are present in the daily lives of artists and scientists. One topic that has repeatedly come up is the comparison scientists’ lab notebooks and artists’ sketchbooks. In both professions, these records serve as a place to document methods, results and progress over time. They... Continue Reading →
Why do we need art?
Over the last few weeks, SciArt Residency partner Darcy and I spoke a lot about the reasons for needing art in our life. This question probably has different answers from the perspective of the artist and the viewer, but I in this post I will try to scratch the surface of the artist’s side. ... Continue Reading →
“The Void” – an artistic experiment – Part I
Following my "Stages of Grief" series, I have set out to create a piece to represent the very first stage - DENIAL. While in my earlier pieces I did my best to stay true to scientific form, here I have come to border abstraction. This piece turns the biology on its head, showing the outline of a... Continue Reading →