Koi Look began with the small shapes that sometimes drift across your field of vision, floaters, which nobody ever learns to love. A woman of seventy has lived with them since childhood. Instead of chasing them away, she gave them a name: her koi. In the painting, the wide-open eye has become a pond, and red and white carp swim in circles around the iris. Ophthalmologists call them vitreous floaters, clumps in the gel of the eye that drift in front of the retina, common and usually harmless.
Oculus Maris came from a story about waking up: a woman out of theatre who began to cry as she opened her eyes, because the ceiling had details. Another, at seventy-two, had watched the world blur for three years; her lenses were replaced, one eye after the other, and the next day she recognised her grandson at the far end of the corridor. In the painting, Hokusai’s wave fills the whole eye, and a koi leaps over the line of the lashes. It is the moment the sea pulls back and sight returns.
Peek a Look is about another kind of seeing. A nine-year-old boy wears a helmet shaped like samurai armour, its visor a porthole; behind the glass you can see his eye, and the landscape of old Japan he never stops drawing. The work is about autism. Koi Look exists as an original, an 80 × 80 cm oil on canvas at €2,600, and as a signed, numbered art print, like the other two, at €300 in 40 × 40 cm and €450 in 60 × 60 cm.
Your questions
What painting can I give an ophthalmologist?
Koi Look, an eye turned into a koi pond: it is the work I suggest first, as a print from €300 or as the original at €2,600. For a cataract surgeon, Oculus Maris is about sight returning once the lens is replaced.
Is Koi Look available as an original?
Yes. There is a single original, an 80 × 80 cm oil on canvas, signed, at €2,600, with a certificate of authenticity. The prints, signed and numbered by hand, are limited to 20 copies in 40 × 40 cm and 20 in 60 × 60 cm.
What is a good gift for an orthoptist?
Koi Look or Oculus Maris in 40 × 40 cm: €300, or €380 in a black floater frame, ready to hang in a clinic. Both put a whole eye at the centre of the picture.
What are the floaters in Koi Look?
Vitreous floaters: clumps in the gel that fills the eye, casting small shadows on the retina. They are common and usually harmless, though a sudden shower of them needs an eye examination. In the painting, they have become koi.
Are these eye paintings posters?
No. Each Medsan print is signed and numbered by hand, in an edition of 20 per size. The Koi Look original is a one-off piece with a certificate of authenticity.
