A Tangible Crossover

Langenbeck in hand, retracting, I can see right through the hole we’d artificially made. A bunch of questions accompanied each dissected plane. 

— What structure is this? 

— What innervates it? 

— What’s the blood supply? 

Theatres are a nice escape from the ward round, especially since I was surgically inclined at the time. That day though, I just wanted to push a trolley around and be a type writer for the morning whilst a coffee worked its way through me. Through the exhaustion and incessant questioning, one thing stuck with me - the orientation of the blade when he made the initial incision. Clearly not important enough to be quizzed about, but since curiosity killed the cat and all, I interviewed the interviewer. 

— Why did you make the cut in that direction? 

The Lines of Langerhans are topological lines which represent the natural orientation of collagen fibres in the skin. They follow the direction of maximum tension, and are matched closely when making a surgical incision, so when closed up, the skin heals optimally. Without prior knowledge of this, I realised that I orientated my brushstrokes in the same way. The arrangement of texture in my figurative paintings, which I pursued for stylistic purposes, actually followed tension lines which represents and serves some function in the human body. I lack the facility of language to express this more beautifully, but it’s kinda mad no? 

To recreate the feeling of something now, I don’t even try to get the colours and that exactly right. As long as I can make my eyes flow over the forms within the painting, using texture to reflect the topological lines that flow over all objects, then I know I’m on the money. It doesn’t have to be accurate, just has to make sense.