2023 BrainArt Competition

Being raised trilingual (speaking English, Hebrew, and French), has sculpted the way I view my mind. I feel like three different people with separate expressions and cultures, and yet, am still only one "me”. I wanted this project to represent the fragmentation of language I feel within, but show that this multifacetedness ultimately merges to form a complex, dynamic whole.  In this piece, you can see the words, texts, and songs of the languages I speak, sewn into the crevices of my brain. When you zoom out from the detail of each individual language, (and move back a couple steps), the languages merge and create a unified, colorful brain.  

--Naomi Askenazi

This submission is meant to represent synaptic pruning. I have drawn a garden that is being pruned to show this. Furthermore, I have combined two different cultures into one to represent how my brain has changed physically to accommodate to these two cultures.

--Neha Sharma

 In my submission for the 'Brain Art Competition', an oil painting, I use a famous photograph of Maradona as inspiration, replacing him with a scientist to portray the neurodiverse experience.   The scientist, standing silent among a bustling crowd, mirrors the inner solitude and misunderstood joy often felt by neurodiverse individuals. Her silence is not exhaustion, but an unspoken testament to the unique experiences she possesses.  The background crowd represents societal misconceptions about neurodiversity, interested more in the results rather than the journey or the individual's unique cognitive experiences.  Through this painting, I aim to emphasize the unexpressed complexities of a neurodiverse world, invoking a greater appreciation for the unspoken triumphs of neurodiverse individuals.

--Mariam Zabihi

 Despite the intricacies and potential for misunderstanding, the protagonist finds inner peace in this journey, not by labelling or categorizing their identity, but by recognizing the harmonious interplay between their cognitive processes and physical form

--Mariam Zabihi

Intertwining vasculature guides us through the  mind.

--Yannan Chen

Immunohistochemistry showing us the estructure of a rat brain and multiple types of neuron populations

--Daniela Coutiño

In it to win it

--Dani

"Technicolor Topography of the Mind" is the product of technical innovation and open science in brain imaging - the 100 micron 7T scan of human brain (Edlow et al., 2019) available on OpenNeuro – as well as recent developments in Artificial Intelligence which were used to gently augment to raw data in resolution, form, and color. The result is an image of the human brain that accurately depicts the tangible matter of which it is composed and intends to evoke the infinite potential of its emergent mind.

--Daniel Felsky

This is meant to represent the motor cortex homunculus. It is proportional to the amount sensory nerves per limb/body part. The sketch is inspired by Andreas Vesalius's drawings in the book De Humani corpori Fabrica.

--Neha Sharma

Diversity 

--Sarah Kim 

Drawing lines is therapeutic, as if ironing out one's anxieties.

--Antonia Machlouzarides-Shalit

My brain has a strong way of identifying itself,this is a self portrait of what my brain thinks of me. Acrylics on canvas. 40 x 50 cm. 

--Fiona Liberatore

Brain template outlining 'Starry Night'. Electrodes whose stimulation has caused psychosis and white matter tracts affected. Lesion-network map of psychosis involving the hippocampus (the pale purple polygon). Credit to LeadDBS, BigBrain template (Amunts et al., 2013), and Vincent Van Gogh

--Garance Meyer, Arnaud Sicardi, Andrew Pines

--Julianna Pijar

Diversity has a variety of meanings in society and in science. Each individual is unique and this underlies differences in . Neurons too are diverse come in many shapes, sizes and types. They work together to control movement, sensation, thoughts, memory, and personality. Thus neuron diversity underlies individual diversity leading to the uniqueness of each individual.  

--Kathleen Sluka

--Othmane Safy

--Verena Schuster

--Verena Schuster

--Jennifer Teng

In "Seeing Indigenously" (2022), Settler-Métis beadwork artist Jamie Thompson asks us what medical illustrations could look like from an Indigenous lens. As a 4th year medical student at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM), Thompson uses her beadwork to bridge gaps between patient experience and anatomy, starting conversations about healthcare and Indigenous justice in Canada.

--Jamie Thompson

As I was embroidering the front of this piece with words in English, French, and Hebrew, I didn’t think to look much at the back. Once I’d finished the cerebellum, however, I turned over the canvas to clean up my stitches, and was surprised to find a pattern forming that looked like a new language.

--Naomi Askenazi

A beautiful mistake during fiber filtering demonstrates frontal "U" fibers and corticospinal tract fibers reminiscent of a ballet dancer spinning on one foot. This image elicits the wonder of the fibers of the brain, its natural underlying beauty, and the potential for mystery which remains undiscovered.

--Ari Kappel

--Smriti Mavar

I am fascinated by the conversation around brain maps - we can map connectivity, activation, structure. Some old and new maps use some of the same names for 'brain areas'. Some researchers are looking at gradients and fuzzy borders rather than distinct brain areas. I wanted to encourage people to think about the many ways to map the brain by superimposing different brain atlases. By moving around the maps, we can compare them and see the shapes that emerge. I submitted this to "beautiful mistake" because these are three prototypes for an art project that was a COVID casualty. The final version was supposed to be like the Prototype 1 (the box with moveable maps), but incorporated into a bookshelf and with the maps engraved instead of drawn. In March 2020, everything closed down the week before I was supposed to make the final version. When things started opening again, I was seriously ill. But thankfully I am recovering, so I may be able to finish the final version soon. 

--Kendra Oudyk