Seven Medsan works for specialities that tend to be forgotten when people look for a gift: respiratory medicine and nephrology, endocrinology and gynaecology, and anatomy itself.
Corallium came from an image of a bleached reef I saw one evening, and from something obvious: a lung looks like a coral, with the same branching and the same fragility. A woman of twenty-four, asthmatic since childhood, describes an attack as low tide; two puffs, and a few minutes later the sea comes back. In the painting, both lungs are living corals with tropical fish swimming through. Kidneyugi is about kidney transplantation: two kidneys with golden cracks, joined by a single golden vessel, for a woman who spent three years on dialysis before receiving someone else’s kidney.
For endocrinology, two works belong together. Thyroid Butterfly turns the thyroid into a butterfly with gold-veined wings; it is about Graves’ disease, in a woman of thirty whose body sped up overnight. Pancreas Koi shows a koi carrying the pancreas along its back, the duct traced like a line of light. It is about type 1 diabetes, and a woman who has worked out her insulin doses four times a day since she was twenty.
Orchis Sacra grows white and pink orchids out of a pelvis, for endometriosis, which affects roughly one woman in ten of childbearing age. Codex Camellia began in front of a Leonardo sheet, a face on one side and the mechanism that holds it on the other; it is about facial palsy. Dragonomy is my manifesto: a flayed dragon, muscle and ribs laid bare, in memory of the time when, in Japan, people looked for our insides in bestiaries. There is no patient in this work, or rather they are all in it.
All of these are signed, numbered art prints, limited to 20 copies per size. They cost €300 in 40 × 40 cm and €450 in 60 × 60 cm; Dragonomy, a portrait format, comes in 40 × 60 cm at €400. A black floater frame adds €80 in 40 × 40 and 40 × 60 cm, and the work arrives ready to hang. A work in stock ships within five working days, to mainland France and Europe.
asthma
Two lungs have grown like two corals beneath the light falling from the surface, and tropical fish swim through them. A lung looks like a coral: the same branching, the same fragility. It is about asthma, which a young woman describes as low tide. For a respiratory physician, or a GP’s waiting room.
kidney transplant
Two kidneys cracked all over, the cracks gold, are joined by a single golden vessel against a night-blue ground. It is about kidney transplantation: receiving someone else’s organ does not erase the crack, it makes it the most precious place in the body. The title plays on the word kintsugi. For a nephrologist or a dialysis team.
endometriosis
White and pink orchids spring from a pelvis as if from a vase. It is about endometriosis, which affects roughly one woman in ten of childbearing age, and about pain that women were long told was all in their heads. For a gynaecologist or a midwife.
type 1 diabetes
A koi curls through night-blue water, a pancreas stretched along its back with the duct running through it like a line of light. It is about type 1 diabetes, when the immune system destroys the cells that make insulin; a woman who has lived with it since she was twenty works out her doses four times a day. For a diabetologist or a diabetes specialist nurse.
Graves’ disease
The thyroid has become a butterfly with gold-veined wings, against a purple ground where cherry petals fall. It is about Graves’ disease, when the gland races: a heart that speeds up for no reason, hands that shake. For an endocrinologist.
facial palsy
A woman in profile, red camellias in her hair, is half face and half anatomical study, like a Leonardo sheet, with its notes and sketched koi. It is about facial palsy, the morning when half a face stops answering. The Japanese camellia does not fade petal by petal; it falls all at once. For a neurologist, or a student who loves old anatomical drawings.
the history of anatomy
A flayed dragon, red muscle and bare ribs, twists against a dark ground like an anatomy plate. It is my manifesto: anatomy is a mythology, and mythologies are anatomies. There is no patient in this work, or rather they are all in it. In 40 × 60 cm, at €400, it is a gift for a student fresh out of anatomy classes, or for a GP, who looks after the whole body.
Corallium, two lungs grown like corals with tropical fish swimming through. It is about asthma, and it is one of the brightest works in Medsan, which makes it a good waiting-room picture.
Kidneyugi, two kidneys with golden cracks joined by a single golden vessel, is about kidney transplantation and the years of dialysis that often come before it. The title plays on the word kintsugi.
Thyroid Butterfly for the thyroid and Graves’ disease, Pancreas Koi for type 1 diabetes. Hung side by side in 40 × 40 cm, they cost €300 each.
Orchis Sacra, orchids growing out of a pelvis, is about endometriosis. It is a light image, in whites and pinks, that suits a waiting room.
Dragonomy, a flayed dragon drawn like an anatomy plate, in 40 × 60 cm at €400, or Codex Camellia, a face half turned into a Leonardo-style study. Both are about anatomy itself, before any speciality.
No. They are signed, numbered art prints, in an edition limited to 20 copies per size. Once the twentieth copy is sold, the edition is closed.
