I was commissioned to make this painting for a the neuroscientist. I looked into his research and was struck by the breadth of his interests ranging from short-term plasticity models to neuromorphic engineering and adversarial dreaming. I wanted to represent this breadth through a collage of symbols suspended in a dream-like landscape as a nod to his interest in dreaming. I placed a blood moon in the center to represent the introspection and transformation required for scientific research. The circuitry symbolizes neuromorphic engineering and holds the moon over the abstracted Bernese Alps, illustrating the juxtaposition of the synthetic and the natural worlds. To the right of this is a curtain of pyramidal neurons inspired by the Golgi staining used by Cajal. I also included an image of neurotransmitter release at a synapse. I wanted the presynaptic terminal to look like a pendulum to symbolize the importance of time in short-term plasticity. Finally, there is yet another hidden symbol not relevant to neuroscience but as a reference to Bern, where the scientist works. Perhaps you can find it.
The mind is the instrument through which we strive to understand the mind, whether through empirical, analytical means, abstractions, experimentation, or imagination. Through this image, I want to convey the emergence of understanding through interweaving these processes within our minds.