Art of Medicine
Jul 2021
Abstract
This acrylic painting considers intimacy and its ethical demands during our personal and professional encounters with one another, drawing on Pablo Picasso’s 1907 Head of the Medical Student.
Figure. Unwavering Silence
Media
Acrylic on canvas.
Caption
Pablo Picasso’s 1907 Head of the Medical Student depicts a figure with one eye open and one eye closed. Inspired by that abstract exploration of interpersonal relationships, this painting uses 2 color-blocked facial profiles to convey an up-close moment of intensity. Color blocking is a technique that allows for the juxtaposition of color in order to elicit divergent emotional responses. The figures’ noses overlap, their lips almost collide, and a single dark tear drops from an eye of the figure at right, suggesting, perhaps, that intimacy in personal or professional encounters demands our acceptance that both pleasures and threats, both revelations and confrontations, are possible when we are this close.
