Colleen Choquette-Raphael

The Flower Eaters #3
wood, neuropathology specimen, photo, glass
12 x 12 in.

The Flower Eaters are derived from a box of neurological specimens found in a Seattle flea market. These tissue samples, taken from patients in a mental hospital in the 1930s take on the appearance of flowers pressed between the pages of a book. Paired with vintage Cartes-de-Visites and pinned to a pure white background, the glass slides of amber brain tissues acts as a transparent hairpiece or mask over the faces of the women and children in the photographs. The work teeters on the threshold of sentiment and science, positing whether or not either can provide evidence of the mutability of a human life.

© Colleen Choquette-Raphael