Science is often claimed as one of the major religions of our age. While many in the scientific community strongly resist such comparisons increasingly their discoveries force us to question our understanding of ourselves. If science and religion do have similar qualities, however, it is perhaps best seen in the art inspired by both. Operating rooms may lack the grandeur of soaring cathedral spires but both have the power to fascinate and terrify, in equal measure. And in both, many would claim, miraculous events do happen.

To the layman the notion of a surgeon operating on the brain of a still conscious patient is about as awe inspiring as anything one can imagine. Yet it also begs the question of why it is that our physical bodies are able to inspire such profound emotions and how these visceral experiences can be shared with the broader public? fine arts magazine

While travelling to GV Art Gallery, in central London’s fashionable Marylebone section, to see Brainstorm, an exhibition that promised to investigate the brain through art and science, I was reminded of the phrase from Shakespeare’s Hamlet: “What a piece of work is a man!” Robert Devcic, the founder of the gallery, has undoubtedly set himself a challenge. As with many sci-art exhibitions, there is a fine line to tread between detail and interpretation, in bringing the complex worlds of brain surgery and neuroscience to a wider audience.

For my money, Devcic is rewarded for his ambition. On entering the exhibition it is difficult not to be struck by the haunting silvered-bronze of Annie Cattrell’s From Within. The sculpture’s focus, brains still enshrouded in their protective dura, gives a stark physicality to the subject, while the web of interconnected veins that criss-cross the work suggests fragility in its intricateness.

Given the complexity of the subject, it is pleasing to discover an exhibition featuring work by seven artists whose works suggest the depth to which the brain can be considered both subject and object of art. On view in this unique area of fine art are artists, Susan Aldworth, Annie Cattrell, Helen Pryor, Andrew Carnie, David Marron, Katherine Dowson and Rachel Gadsden.

Their works are shown alongside a film of a neuropathologist performing a ‘brain dissection.’ For the viewer, this juxtaposition is the starting point for a dialogue between how we see the brain and understand its functions scientifically and what happens when this physical organ that produces our individual visual and creative understanding becomes the subject for the artist.

These seven London-based artists have diverse practices but each uses science as part of their investigative process. They have responded to the subject using media and technologies including sculpture, painting, drawing, etching, photography and scientific materials.

The inspiration for Brainstorm was an invitation earlier this year by Dr David Dexter, Reader in Neuropharmacology and Scientific Director, Parkinson’s UK Tissue Bank, Centre for Neuroscience, Imperial College, London, for GV Art to observe a brain dissection. On 17 November, curator Robert Devcic and artists Katharine Dowson and David Marron spent more than two hours observing a brain being cut up at the college. Some of the works in this exhibition were made in direct response to this experience.

Indeed, in order for this subject to be driven forward these types of collective exhibitions will surely prove crucial. Not only does Brainstorm bring together a group of artists already working within the field (a fact that alone suggests the momentum behind the theme) but it gives the viewing public the opportunity to see and respond to the breadth of ideas underpinning it.

This impression is only strengthened by the variety of both interpretations and media brought to bear on the theme. Striking examples include Susan Aldworth’s Brainscape 17 (opening image), using the lenticular printing method (causing the image to shift as the viewer moves). I have encountered this medium used in this context before, but it is one that befits the subject matter excellently. Moving past the image as it morphs, creates the impression of a synapse firing and gives colour to the idea of a birth of a thought.

Art at its best helps to resolve the problem of expressing what is, for many, a raw personal experience that they may have difficulty expressing to others. While there are a few pieces in the exhibition that sway more towards the physical than the philosophical, there is plenty here to get the mind working.

Images such as Andrew Carnie’s, Autumn Twist, where he superimposes a cross-section of a brain with the rings of a tree have lingered along with a sense of discomfort that comes of being challenged about your preconceived ideas. While intellectually the works certainly offer their challenges, the overriding impact of Brainstorm is the aesthetic beauty of the responses.

What Devcic has succeeded in doing is creating an environment inviting enough to draw people’s attention and encourage them to confront the work on its own terms. That alone is no small feat. Where there is room to expand is in raising awareness of these types of exhibitions and promoting an active engagement with the scientific community, whose work is almost as much on show here as the art.

Anyone expecting all the grotesqueness of a Victorian operating room will be disappointed. Just as the surgeon has to guide his endoscope through the tiny passageways of the brain, this is a subject best treated with nuance and precision.

by Tomas Hirst, Contributing Writer

Brainstorm: Investigating the Brain through Art and Science

3rd December 2010 – 22nd January 2011

GV Art Gallery, 49 Chiltern Street, Marylebone, London W1U 6LY

*The gallery hopes to have the actual brain and brain slices involved at that event on display in coming weeks. GV Art is the only private gallery in the country to hold a Human Tissue Authority License for Public Display and Storage.

Visit the gallery on line at: www.gvart.co.uk

Editor’s Note: Tomas Hirst is a new contributor to ARTES. His is a journalist and playwright living in London. He has written for The Times, The Guardian and Prospect Magazine. Watch ARTES for future reviews of the London art scene through his experienced eyes.