An essay by Anne Carson, discovered during art history research, describes eros as desire, linked to the poetry of Sappho. This in turn linked my thoughts to my passion for poetry, including that of the Ancient poet Sappho, kindled during many visits to Greece and the island of Lefkas where, one legend has it, she jumped to her death. The apple described in Sappho’s fragment has its own associations related to desire. I bisected an apple, and explored its inner core in detail, which resulted in the Eros series. The watercolour wash monotype technique alludes to Rorschach inkblots. The magnification of the inner apple alludes to the fractal patterns found in nature.   

With contemporary medical imaging technology, we can delve deeper into the brain, the structure which controls our lives, both physically and emotionally. The sinuous beauty created by a collection of blood vessels seen on MRI brain scans, known as the Circle of Willis, was described by O’Murch as one of the “sacred spaces in nature”. With MRI scanning, fascinating, intricate and previously unseen detail of the human brain is revealed, reminiscent of the development of the Art Nouveau movement at the turn of the last century, inspired by mysterious patterns in nature uncovered by microscope technology.