Beauty and the Brain

Profound and unfathomable imagery is often found in places people never go: millions of miles away in space or thousands of feet beneath the sea, for example.

One place where photographer Veronica Szarejko never expected to find immense beauty was through a peek at the brain using a transmission electron microscope. “I felt as if I had been transported back to the darkroom during a time when I was printing my own silver gelatin images for exhibitions,” she recalls.“The depth and beauty of these black and white images were stunning, and I felt an immediate attachment to them.” Szarejko, was inspired to conceive The Art of the Brain, an exhibition of more than 70 photographs, drawings, paintings, videos, and sculptures celebrating the beauty of the brain as seen through the eyes of researchers and medical illustrators at the school’s Friedman Brain Institute.

Our goal is to not only highlight these amazing images, but for people to learn about the really exciting work being done by institute researchers on advancing our understanding of brain and spinal cord disorders.

– Veronica Szarejko

This year—in which Art of the Brain was presented in a 3-D, virtual space due to pandemic concerns—contributions environment at which avant-garde science research is progressing and developing novel treatments for neurological disorders.” Represented are advanced technologies, such as electron microscopy, laser-based cellular imaging, and confocal microscopy, and techniques including 3-D modeling, immunofluorescent staining, diffusion tractography, and fluorescence microscopy. All of the artwork was created by institute members, mostly in the workplace.