'Ellipse'

Ellipse / 20x10 / acrylic on canvas
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When I began thinking about creating this painting for Your Brain on Art for the Branch Out Foundation, I knew I wanted to incorporate a portrait. After learning that the Neuroscientist was studying the effects of gut/brain immune response biome, I decided to expand my piece to be more figurative. The focus is on the correlation between genes & environment in treating MS and Stroke. 
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So much of what I included was symbolic...from the colours that represent stroke (red), MS (yellow) and gut (blue) to the circular shapes that represent the slides I saw and also the cyclical or top-down/bottom-up nature of the effects food we eat on our stomach (also known as the second brain) and brain. 
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I wanted this painting to be a physical, human representation of a scientific event. Seeing the vulnerability of a person looking down at the red apple and knowing how those nutrients can affect brain health. 
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During my conversation with the scientists, the image of a flower came up and I chose to include it in both the background and also in the patterns of the dress. I exchanged the pattern of black roses, moths & beetles on the original dress with images of microglia as they account for 10-15% of all cells in the brain and act as the main form of immune defense and brain maintenance. To me they also resemble the bachelor's buttons that grow in my garden.
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The apple naturally symbolizes health and also is a symbol of the heart which connects to the mind & body. In Norse mythology, apples were given to the goddess in exchange for eternal youthfulness.
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The title of this painting, Ellipse, is a connection between my recent studies in Astronomy, Psychology & Math and represents the cyclical nature of this process and symbolically connects the figure & fruit. 
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The difficulty was in utilizing several photographs I have taken of my daughter in the past as I currently don't have access to her. I also used my husband as a 'hand model' and had to figure out how to make the hand look like a young a lady's...my biggest challenge :)
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Tickets to the event are available through the Branch Out Foundation.