Recent Commission Project 2008

At the request of Dr. Steven Seltzer and Art Consultant Joyce Creiger, artist Mary Taylor was commissioned to create art for the niches in the reception area of the Radiology Department at Brigham & Women’s Hospital.

The concept was for each niche to represent a medical imaging technology; X-ray, MRI and CT scan. 

Three digital collages X-Ray, MRI and CT scan were created using digital photographs, digital scans, plus antique anatomical drawings.   
To create the digital collage for X-Ray, photographs of an antique x-ray bulb were combined with a digital scan of an antique glass plate x-ray of a hand. Carl Patturelli, R.T.(R)(CT)M.Ed.,MBA, Director of Ed for Radiology at BWH provided the antique glass X-Ray and Steven Seltzer, E.,M.D. loaned several antique bulbs to Taylor so she could photograph them.

For the MRI collage three images were used, a photograph of the MRI machine at BWH, a brain scan provided anonymously and a portion of an antique print by Fritz Kahn.In the CT Scan collage three different images were combined a photograph of a current CT scanner at BWH, a digital scan of a discarded circuit board from an earlier machine and antique anatomical drawings by Amé Bourdon.

Because each of the different medical imaging technologies reveals what is hidden Taylor considered the qualities of transparency and illumination inspired by the machines.  She chose to use clear acrylic panels and silver leaf to complete the three dimensional assemblages. The silver leaf was used to provide the illumination and the images transferred to acrylic to provide the transparency and depth.  The final digital images were printed onto a film and transferred to the clear acrylic panels, the transfer process providing ambiguity and depth with its fissures and bubbles.  Taylor constructed wooden boxes to provide a base to mount each of ­the translucent prints silver leafed the boxes and mounted the acrylic prints onto the surface.