KNOW BY HEART
In 2022 I had open heart surgery. The experience of my body failing, changed how I saw and knew myself. The Invisible, intangible machine that kept me alive began to fail. In this process I heard every beat and felt every misfire. I became viscerally aware that this fragile; alive, sinuous part of me could stop.
Know by Heart is a deeply personal book that examines life through the prospect of death. Illustration as an exploration of connection to self. The mind to the body. To feel, to know, and to understand life at its most precarious.
Drawing is an act of approximation rather than a fixed description of absolute truth; there are no facts only interpretations. We do not draw to present objectivity, we draw to know, to understand. The Artist and researcher Gemma Anderson describes drawing as ‘…an intimate, devotional act of wonder.”
When we draw, we begin to embody the object of our observation. It is an essential part of being human, something we have been doing for over 50,000 years.
Anatomical drawings too, are interpretations of the human body. They often give the misleading impression that everything within us is clearly defined and immediately distinguishable.
Yet these illustrations often tell us more about graphic conventions of anatomy then what there is to be seen.
The body isn’t just a domain of nature; it is both a cultural and biological object. As we look inside ourselves, we also consider our place in nature. We begin to question; How does our relationship with our body mirror our relationship to life? Simon Estok writes, 'we shelter ourselves form the harrowing vulnerability of our bodies existence.’ For many when asked to think of their body in illness or death their response is repulsion. But we cannot run from our bodies, we must confront them. We must live in them.
Descartes’ mind–body dualism framed humans as possessing a unique mind and soul, establishing a severance that rendered us fundamentally “other” to the rest of nature. Nature was the environment of man, not man himself.
