Blog

Brain Beauty, Beauty Brain; Olympic Peninsula, Port Hadlock artist Andrea Lawson's innovative submission, has won the Sno-Isle Library’s public art competition. The work, consisting of nine acrylic painted panels arranged on a background grid, will be a permanent installation in the Camano Island Library's Reading Room. The work will be installed this autumn, exact date in September/October to be determined. The Sno-Isle Libraries call for art specified a hanging work with a scientific theme.

The accompanying photos represent the working study for Brain Beauty, Beauty Brain. The final version will vary somewhat from these images.
Lawson's energetic and vibrant painted panels represent different aspects, parts and views of the brain seen at different levels of magnification, including the microscopic. The images created in her expressive painting style will have an abstract feel. On closer view the gestural paintings describe various functions of the brain inspired by scientific exploration and brain imagery such as glial cells, potassium ions, a dendrite spine, hippocampus, neocortex, the retina and transmission of neurons on the molecular level. After exploring several scientific fields for inspiration, Lawson chose to concentrate on the brain. The brain controls our cognitive processes, our physical movements and even our memories. On another level, it relates to the library, reading and brain development. Our brains give us the ability to think at a high level and to create which distinguishes us as human beings.