Clockwork Purple
Artistic Organs is the use of art and abstraction to characterize the nature of the organs.
Dr Davidoff who is an educator uses conceptual art to teach through images and imagery providing artistic similes and frameworks for learning. This is particularly helpful and appealing to right brained individuals.
“Scaffolding of the Brain” is a stick like image and shows a long semi-horizontal vector and a shorter almost vertical vector, each divided into colors to represent the major parts of the brain. “Inverted C’s” shows how the many major structures are organized around these vectors.
“Scaffolding of the Heart” shows a Christian cross lying on its side dividing the heart into the blue deoxygenated right side, and red oxygenated left side with the septa rendered in different colors and the organization of nerves and vessels around the cross. As parts are added to the cross it takes the form of a house with 4 major rooms- upper atria and lower ventricles. The right atrial appendage looks like Snoopy’s nose and the left atrial appendage like a crooked finger or the map of South America. “Football Ventricle” describes the shape of the left and ‘Triangle Ventricle” describes the shape of the right pumping chamber. “Right Hand Right Heart” shows the direction of flow of the right heart. “Maid of the Misty Heart” shows the well known boat of Niagra falls sailing under the spray of the mitral valve, while “Walking Carina” displays the angle of the carina similar to the angle of the crotch as a person walks.
“Jungle Chest” shows the ribs rendered in bright colors of the birds and trees of the jungle, ‘Berries of the Chest”, and “Emphysema” show the alveoli in health and disease. “Chest of Fruit” displays the heart as a red pepper, the lungs as grapes and the ribs as segments of banana skin. “Ginkgo Airways” shows the tree in colorful bloom abstracted from the airways of the lungs reminiscent of the shape of the leaf. “Cedars by the River” uses the sternum to create the trunk and branches of the tree.
‘Bunny in the Liver”, “Rudolph Reindeer in the Liver” and “The Swallow in the Liver” reflect animals that have similar appearance to the portal and hepatic veins. “Clockwork Purple” shows the metabolic factory working tirelessly around the clock. ‘Jello Liver” describes the consistency of the organ.
‘Archimedes Screw and the Valves of Heister” is an innovative image suggesting the mechanism of flow in the cystic duct, “Flamenco Dancer” is a gallbladder extraction, while “Gallstones” shows a slither of banana, green pepper seeds and a green pepper. “Strawberry Gallbladder” uses the greens of the pepper and the red of the strawberry to exemplify the disorder. “Gallbladder Cancer” uses the attachment of the placenta to the wall of the green pepper to reflect invasive growth. “Phrygian Cap Gallbladder ” is the story of a primitive race defending freedom and liberty now expressed as a revolutionary icon, on US seal of the senate and army and the coat of arms of many Latin American countries. “Sangoma” is a Zulu witchdoctor who uses the gallbladder to exemplify receiving and giving life.
A revolver, banana, parrot, woodpecker and seahorse are used to describe the unusual shape of the pancreas. “Coming out” shows the pancreas in effusive and joyful color. “The Pancreas at Night”, is dark and reflects the time of day, and “Pancreas with Buddies” shows this shy organ with new found friends of the splenic vein and renal vein. “Spleen at Work” uses a da Vinci innovation to show the churning factory of the spleen taking in and recycling old red cells. “God Why Me?” describes the lot of the colon
“Tubes in the Body” is a collection of the variety of tubes that transport an array of fluids and solids around the body. “Turbulence” and “Laminar” describe the types of flow. “Moods of the Belly Button” is a collage of color that portrays a variety of emotions, “Seasons in the Body” defines the cycles of time. “Bubble Bubble Toil and Trouble” shows a witch creating the magic male brew in the prostate. “Building Passions Over a Glass of Wine” shows the uterus and prostate on a date. “Later that Evening” reveals ecstatic union. ‘Goodbye My Children’ is the “maternal” hope and prayer of the prostate as she sends her load of sperm with food reserves on their journey and race to the ovum. “Free at Last” is the cry of the new found freedom of the male seed as they seek independence.
The artist uses stories and concepts that are common tales in history, culture, literature, food, nature, to enlighten the student of medicine and the lay person. In so doing the organs who are hidden inside, are brought outside to life.