Whoa, damn, there are brains and bits of brains all over the interior walls of UT’s Seay Building.
Ew?
No, wait, let’s be more specific: There are images of, diagrams of, complex and beautiful paintings of brains and bits of brains all over the interior walls of UT’s Seay Building.
Of course there are, because that’s where the university’s various brain-related programs are based: behavioral neuroscience, cognitive neuroscience, clinical and developmental psychology, et cetera, et cetera.
Makes perfect sense that such graphics would adorn the interior walls, right? But you should know something else about all these images and diagrams and (complex and beautiful) paintings of brains: They’re originals.
No, for real. They’re not some mass-produced, wall-sized study aids ordered from a fancy scientific catalog. They are “Cerebraphile,” the work of PhD-track neuroscientist Rebecca A. Zarate, a curly-haired and appropriately brainy spitfire of a human better known as Ms. RAZ, who, because, what, she doesn’t have enough of a studying-and-teaching load taking up her time? figured she’d just go ahead and spend several months creating enormous representations of the skull-caged gray pudding that we use for, among other things, reading sentences like this one.
“I worked on the pieces in the show from August 4th to December 3rd of last year,” says RAZ, wired on coffee and whatever dopamine (or other verve-facilitating neurotransmitters) her brain seems to generate in profusion. “For four months I was still teaching and doing other things, but mostly I was a full-time artist, sometimes working for 15 hours at a time. It was great!”
This sort of personal industry is “great” when you’re a self-taught artist on a mission, using a variety of media to render your cerebrum-celebrating visions for the rest of the world to encounter. “Pretty much all the painting is done in watercolor,” says RAZ, “but I also use some charcoal, some pen-and-ink.”
Well, it’s great for the artist, in any case. But it’s only great for the general public, for the viewer, if the talent and/or skill of that artist is worthy of note, is maybe even exceptionally remarkable – you know what I’m saying?
[Note: This article wouldn’t exist if your reporter thought the exhibition in the Seay Building was other than exceptionally remarkable – both as art and as educational material.]
And which of the various displays scattered throughout the building is the artist most proud of? It’s the one called Open Minded: The Heads.
“It was inspired by those old anatomy books where you can flip through the pages, see the images build up in transparent overlays,” says RAZ. “I’ve sort of re-created that – but huge. There are five panels that you can flip through like it’s a dissection, each of them three feet by four feet, and one layer fits in each panel. The first panel’s a regular head, then you open it and it’s the muscles, then open it again and it’s a skull, open it again and it’s cut in half. It’s massive. I had to contact a welder to make the rack that holds the panels, and trying to explain your vision to somebody who’s never made anything like it before, ah …” She laughs and shakes her head, sending lengths of raven-black curls shimmering. “So that, and all the sheets of Plexiglas, and hanging it and mounting it, there’s well over 200 hours in that one installation alone.”
And so of course the Seay Building powers-that-be, knowing of the quality of RAZ’s creative endeavors and wanting to visually supercharge the environment through which their students move, those worthies up and commissioned this compelling array of work from the young scientist-artist, right?
Uh, no – not really.
“My good friend Leor Katz who’s a PhD student at UT,” says RAZ, “he was the one who was telling me, ‘Your art needs to be displayed, you need to put it up.’ I was joking about Banksying it, just sticking it up on the walls anonymously, and he said, ‘Hold on, I think I have a more legitimate route,’ and sent a few emails.”
So while there were no funds forthcoming, while the cost of manufacture and installation came out of Zarate’s personal accounts, at least the art was officially welcomed.
“It doesn’t belong to UT, but I’m letting them have it for as long as possible,” says RAZ. “If somebody else wants it one day, then, yeah, maybe I’ll take it down.”
You could head over to that Seay Building at the corner of Dean Keeton and Speedway right now, citizen, and see the entire exhibition for yourself. But recall that the various displays are scattered throughout the building? The best way to see the works, then – to see the works and have their details and contexts elucidated – is to get a tour of them. From the artist herself.
Look: Here’s the website of Ms. RAZ, where you can contact her and set up a tour. For which your brain, if it’s interested in learning a bit more about itself in ways that will also please your eyes, will definitely thank you.
This article appears in February 5 • 2016.