Cardiac muscle forms the thicker layer of our pulsating hearts. It contracts and relaxes, contracts and relaxes many times a minute, every minute of our lives. With many mitochondria, packed between the fibres, to provide the energy required for such a dedicated task.
The acinar tissue of the pancreas is beautifully arranged. These secretory cells produce pancreatic enzymes. They are released into the middle of the flower. From there they drain into the intestine, to help digest food. They also produce bicarbonate ions to neutralize the acidic products of the stomach.
Skin is one of the tissues that I tend to paint following the first histological images that I worked with, stained with hematoxylin and eosin. The results is one of the most ‘literal’ of my human tissues, easily recognizable. I have also created several skin scarves, as I like the idea of wrapping myself with an extra layer of skin.
Adipocytes, also known as lipocytes and fat cells are the main cells forming fat tissue. They are absolutely beautiful – currently on my wall.
More neurons. Versatile and with beautiful crisscrossing lines. This work uses the support glial cells as accents to highlight the majestic static neurons.
This is a section of cortical bone. The ‘solid’ part of the bone, organized around the blood supply.
This work is called ‘I had a thought’. Neurons offer great variability in my view, and neural tissue is one of the few which works well both in full colour and in black and white.
Blood is one of the most recognisable microscopic images out there. And yet, it doesn’t look like this at all when you look at blood through the microscope. This image is a cross between what we can see, what we know is there, and an idealized view of how blood should look. Almost like a cartoon of a familiar image, something that you will never mistake for the real thing, but that is able to unleash in you the same emotions than the real image does. This particular piece is lost – it was destroyed by mistake.
Apoptosis, the programmed suicide of a cell. This is one of these images that will never be seen through a microscope. It is created from what we know the process of apoptosis entails. I particularly enjoy drawing and painting leaky mitochondria, discolored and deflated. After doing so many hundreds if not thousands of rounded, turgent, bright mitochondria, it is almost a relief to do a sickly, pathetic one. The disintegration of the nucleus and the glorious blebbing of the cytoplasm are the protagonists here.
I have done several versions of the apoptotic cell. This one almost killed me. Don’t frame large pictures with glass and hang them over a bed. They do look lovely, but the nail may fail in the middle of the night. An apoptotic cell is a restless cell. It may have moved, or it may have been me moving.