"Press"
4in x 12in, acrylic on canvas

"[About touch receptors] the brain reads the firings and stop firings like Morse code and registers smooth, raspy, cold." (A Natural History of the Senses, Diane Ackerman, pg. 80)

Artist Statement: When the reading mentioned our brain recognizing textures, I thought about how our brains can also associate words with their physical form without needing a visual. I painted the words "rough" and "smooth" in morse code, and while someone might not know what the code says, they would be able to distinguish the two by touching the canvas and feeling the code for themselves. The code spelling out "rough" was painted on thick and globby while the word "smooth" was painted thinly and flat against the canvas. Just because we can't see something doesn't mean we can't describe it through our other senses, in this case that sense being touch. 

"Migraine"
6in x 6in, acrylic on canvas

"English, which can express the thoughts of Hamlet and the tragedy of Lear, has no words for the shiver and the headache...let a sufferer try to describe a pain in his head to a doctor and language at once runs dry." (A Natural History of the Senses, Diane Ackerman, pg. 104)

Artist Statement: I've had chronic migraines ever since I was little. I've never been able to get people to understand what it's like, and it's more than my head just hurting. When I have a migraine, I can barely function and it's awful when I have to be up and moving around. I tried to convey the feelings from a migraine in the paintings, but it still doesn't feel like enough. The crazy, scribbled lines are supposed to represent the fuzziness and "tv static" that takes over in my head when a migraine comes. The wavy lines are for the nausea, and those canvases are turned diagonally to make you as dizzy and uncomfortable as possible while looking at it. The strong black and white contrast represents my head (black) and the symptoms (white) and their sharp, intense effects they have on me. The strokes go from bold and solid to thin and broken up to show the ebb and flow that comes with the pain.