The Thing with Petals
Photograph/Digital Abstract
This artwork is a visual rendering of what it feels like to have expressive aphasia. It began as a photo of fresh orange chrysanthemums. It was then merged with a photo of wilting dahlias. The image was manipulated to convey the mental struggle of being unable to find the words one is looking for. The neuronal pathways between the image and the words feel twisted, knotted up, and their connections are often lost. Flashes, outlines, and colours are still there in the mind’s eye, but the imagined neural pathways are a mass of ineffective tangles and dead ends.
