Art and Health Lecture Series

Art and Health Workshop Talks and Art and Health Lecture Series presenting the stories of artists who creatively respond to health issues through their artwork.

Visualizing the Human Body: Anatomy, Art and Medicine

For thousands of years, physicians, scientists, and artists have sought to understand all aspects of the human body. Fascination with anatomy and its consequent visualization crosses cultures, time periods, and medium, inspiring well-known artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Frida Kahlo. This lecture seeks to illuminate varying ways of understanding and visualizing the human body, placing the way we see ourselves in a new context.

Filmed by the O’Donnell Institute, March 10, 2023

Artists’ Response in a Pandemic: COVID-19 and Influenza 1918

The Spanish Flu of 1918-1920 has recently had renewed public interest in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Artists of the early twentieth century responded to the turbulent times and huge loss of life through art historically traditional media such as documentary photos, billboards, and painted portraits of friends and family. Contemporary artists have been able to respond more quickly over the last several months, using new media and social networks to reach wide audiences. Compared to the paintings of Edward Munch and Egon Schiele, the immediacy and intimacy of new media communicates artists’ more direct, personal feelings of loneliness and the physical emptiness of space, as well as documents the virus’s impact on individual victims and communities.

Filmed by the O’Donnell Institute, October 15, 2020

Mindful Observation: The Power of Playfulness

Play serves many valuable purposes. It is a means by which children and adults develop their physical, intellectual, creative, emotional, social, and moral capacities, and it is a means of creating and preserving friendships. Play also provides a state of mind that, in adults as well as children, is uniquely suited for social connections, high-level reasoning, insightful problem solving, and all sorts of creative endeavors. Presented October 21, 2020 by Nasher Sculpture Center, this workshop focuses on artworks by Joan Miro and Joel Shapiro.

Filmed by the Nasher Sculpture Center, October 2020

Mindful Observation: Nurturing Relationships

Love, intimacy, romance, and sex are the cornerstones of a loving relationship. A successful relationship needs more than one of the people involved to care and nurture, offering ways to meaningfully connect. Key habits for nurturing relationships such as listening, affirming and respect will be addressed. Presented October 7, 2020, this workshop focuses on artworks by Constantin Brancusi, Pablo Picasso and Medardo Rosso.

Filmed by the Nasher Sculpture Center, October 2020

Mindful Observation: Staying in the Moment and Seeing in New Ways

Living in the moment—also called mindfulness—is a state of active, open, intentional attention on the present. Through this session, give yourself the gift of slowing down to quiet the mind and body, and to be fully present in the moment while looking at art and the world around you. We will focus on artworks by Barbara Hepworth, Richard Long and Henry Moore. 

Filmed by the Nasher Sculpture Center, September 2020

The Cultural Impact of Pandemics

Discover the historical, cultural and economic impacts that pandemics have had on society dating back to the Plague of Justinian in 541 CE. Presented September 16, 2020. Sensitive viewers are advised that this presentation contains images that are graphic in nature.

Filmed by the Nasher Sculpture Center, September 2020

Art and the Brain

What is the role of art in addressing how a person manages illness? This program explores how the brain learns, how we create memories, and how creativity contributes to healing.

Filmed at the Nasher Sculpture Center, 2019

Presenters:

Dr. James Fleshman, MD, FASCRS, FACS
Sparkman Endowed Professor and Chair of the Department of Surgery, Baylor University Medical Center a part of Baylor Scott & White Health

Daniel Krawczyk, Ph.D.
Deputy Director, The University of Texas at Dallas Center for BrainHealth at The University of Texas at Dallas

Bonnie Pitman
Distinguished Scholar in Residence, Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History, and Director of Art/Brain Innovations, Center for BrainHealth at The University of Texas at Dallas

Anna Smith
Curator of Education, Nasher Sculpture Center


Reaching New Heights: Overcoming Physical Limitations

Learn how artists including Henri Matisse and Mark di Suvero reinvented themselves when faced with life-altering physical challenges and consider how hospitals are creating new opportunities for artists to contribute to the healing environment.

Filmed at the Nasher Sculpture Center, 2019

Presenters:

Kathleen Bell, M.D.
Chair, Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at UT Southwestern Medical Center and O’Donnell Brain Institute member

Sandi Chapman, Ph.D.
Founder and Chief Director, Center for BrainHealth at The University of Texas at Dallas

Jed Morse
Chief Curator, Nasher Sculpture Center

Bonnie Pitman
Distinguished Scholar in Residence, Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History, and Director of Art/Brain Innovations, Center for BrainHealth at The University of Texas at Dallas

John Pomara
Artist and Professor of Visual Art, The University of Texas at Dallas


The Power of Art: Creating through Disorders of the Mind

Art and medical professionals highlight artists who were affected by mental disorders and trauma. These artists managed to create art through their brain disorders, whether it was Vincent Van Gogh who made some of his most famous works from St. Paul Hospital or 2019 Nasher Prize Laureate Isa Genzken whose art rapidly changed over the course of her career, from making post-war concrete sculptures to staging theatrical sets with mannequins.

Two psychological and neurological experts also dive into the fundamentals of trauma and brain activity that is triggered during the creative process.

Filmed at the Nasher Sculpture Center, 2019

Presenters:

Leigh A. Arnold, Ph.D.
Associate Curator, Nasher Sculpture Center

Mark Goldberg, M.D.
Professor, Neurology and Neurotherapeutics, Associate Vice President of Institutional Advancement at UT Southwestern Medical Center and O’Donnell Brain Institute member

Ann Marie Warren, Ph.D., ABPP
Co-Director of Trauma Research at the Level I Trauma Center at Baylor University Medical Center, at Baylor Scott & White Health

Bonnie Pitman
Distinguished Scholar in Residence, Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History, and Director of Art/Brain Innovations, Center for BrainHealth at The University of Texas at Dallas


Seeing with the Brain: Artists and Visual Impairments

This iteration of the Art & Health Series delves into how artists like Claude Monet and Georgia O’Keeffe responded to a loss of sight, as well as offers a firsthand testimony from a contemporary artist, Stephen Lapthisophon, about how visual impairment affects his work.

An Assistant Professor of Ophthalmology also describes the medical issues faced by artists with eye diseases and explains how multi-sensory encounters with art can enrich the experiences of both sighted and non-sighted learners.

Filmed at the Nasher Sculpture Center, 2019

Presenters:

Catherine Craft, Ph.D.
Curator, Nasher Sculpture Center

Stephen Lapthisophon
Artist and Educator

Niraj Rama Nathan, M.D.
Assistant Professor, Ophthalmology at UT Southwestern Medical Center

Bonnie Pitman
Distinguished Scholar in Residence, Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History, and Director of Art/Brain Innovations, Center for BrainHealth at The University of Texas at Dallas

Sponsor

The Art and Health Series was made possible through the generosity of The Donna Wilhelm Family Fund.

Partners

Baylor University Medical Center, part of Baylor Scott & White Health; Center for BrainHealth at The University of Texas at Dallas; Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History at The University of Texas at Dallas; UT Southwestern Medical Center/Peter O’Donnell Jr. Brain Institute