The brain is mysterious. As an artist, my work celebrates a perplexing, exasperating and glorious organ: the brain. My artwork deals with the intersection of art and science.

My current work focuses on self-portraits based on my own magnetic resonance images (MRIs), or brain scans. MRIs are stark black and white computer images comprised of pixels that form two-dimensional representations of the brain. MRIs provide critical clinical understanding of a brain’s structure and, for an MS patient and those with other diseases, its disease progression. In the MRI images that are the subject of this exhibit, my brain is naked and without emotional context, without passion or sadness, without all the frailties, humor and idiosyncrasies that make me who I am.

My artwork focuses on medical imaging. My goal is to saturate the cold, two-dimensional MRI pixels with the numerous colors and emotions that comprise the landscape of my life…to explore my personal reflections within the digital self-portrait.

I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) in 1991. I promptly became fascinated with medical imaging when I found out that I could use MRIs to plot the changes that transpired in my body and my brain.

My MS diagnosis inspires me to create images that provide new insights into the brain and at the same time make medical imaging more accessible to those who view these revealing pictures. The brain -- even a brain that has disease -- is beautiful, complex and intriguing. Rather than turn away from what brings one discomfort, I aim to encourage viewers to contemplate this amazing biological structure, with all of its powers to change, heal, and regress…and to confound.