Lauren Post #1

As an art major also taking the prerequisites to go to medical school I find it puzzling that it is so difficult for people to imagine how art and science intersect. Whenever I tell someone that I’m majoring in art and want to go to medical school they say something along the lines of “wow those are two completely separate areas.”

Over the past three summers I have interned for a plastic surgeon in San Diego named Dr. Steven R. Cohen. Dr. Cohen is one of the world’s most elite surgeon’s and he also has his own art practice. All of the artwork throughout the office is his own and he even had a solo show in Paris this past fall. While watching him perform countless surgeries over the years I have seen first hand how he uses the scientific knowledge he has about the human body in conjunction with his artistic eye to produce something life changing. In the field of plastic surgery art and science a united entity. I have found that art mainly serves to visualize scientific concepts, and science can in turn stimulate the creative drive to make art. For instance over the summer Dr. Cohen had me translate the technique for one of his surgeries into a storyboard. This storyboard was then taken and turned into an animated video to show surgeon’s how to use the new technique. Now if an artist were to see that animation explaining the new technique they may become fascinated by it leading them to do research and eventually making work about it. I found an article in the San Diego Union Tribune where Dr. Cohen explains how his artistic eye is involved in his surgical process.

“Q: How does your artistic experience inform your plastic surgery work? A: My work in plastic surgery is integrally related to my art and my need to create beauty and express myself creatively. Making decisions about how to build a nose or move the face forward or the eyes together draws from an artistic sensibility of what looks good. Science is used as a system of checks and balances. I use my artistic judgment to determine when something looks beautiful and in harmony.”
Swiss artist Cornelia Hesse-Honegger took it upon herself to document the insects within the area surrounding Chernobyl in 1986. She collected the insects and documented any deformities they had due to exposure to radiation. After documenting all of these insects for several years she has accumulated thousands of watercolors depicting all of the deformed insects she has found. Scientists are now using her watercolors in order to figure out just how the radiation is impacting the insects in the area surrounding Chernobyl compared to other living organisms. I think that not only are her watercolors beautiful, but also that it’s very cool to see scientists drawing on the the work of an artist for the basis of their scientific investigation.

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