Virtual Exhibitions

“I think of it as painting with tools of technology.” – Paula Crown

The self-portrait is among the prevalent subjects in art history.  Typically, it involves using a mirror to capture the surface information which is then selectively conveyed to the audience. The expectation is that the artist’s internal life will shine forth from these external details. Of course, there are no objective portrait.  The artist’s perception always colors their view of the subject, and the visitors’ perceptions color their interpretations.

The multimedia work” Inside My Head: A Contemporary Self Portrait (2013)” began with magnetic resonance images (MRIs) of Crown’s brain. Beset by migraines since childhood, she animated these high-tech images of her internal landscape and projected them onto concave screens. The piece is a self-portrait rendered from the inside out, an intimate view of her personal topology. Altered and viewed in an alternative scale, the images evoke the cosmos and its star-scapes.

This virtual exhibition, based on a physical exhibition of the same name which has been displayed in various U.S. galleries, shows an animation based on Crown’s MRI scans. Initially, the imagery appears to be abstract patterns. However, upon closer observation, these images, with their pulsating accumulation of shapes and forms, reveal the workings of the artist’s own brain, documented via MRI. As Crown stated, “I view them as abstract forms and topologies that could be micro or macro in size.” Although Crown has said that landscapes capture her attention and she researches topologies and maps, there is no narrative or symbolism in her work. It is the various shapes and patterns that interest her. Her work is “just a connection between what is happening in our bodies and what is happening in the larger world,” she said.

The animation is accompanied by an audio track composed specifically for this piece, replacing the original hammering noise of the MRI scanner with a soothing violin score, a musical interpretation of the activity of Crown’s brain. As the shapes change, so does the music. “The music is my brain’s anatomy that was literally put into a software program and converted to sound,” Crown explained. “Then a violinist plays background as the animation of the brain scans appears on the screen.”

For more information, visit Paula Crown’s website.