Degeneration is inevitable with age.
Oil on canvas
32x40in.
2011

There’s a cocktail for everything.
Oil on canvas
32x40in.
2011

Two Units to the Right
Oil on canvas
24x36in.
2011

Laparoscopy and Local Anesthetics
Oil on canvas
24x36in.
2011

Recommended in instances of fatty infiltration
Oil on canvas
24x36in.
2011

Remember, it bleeds.
Oil on canvas
19x24in.
2011

Amy Reinthaler

My work addresses the variety of ways we embody health and disease within contemporary cultural constructs. I focus on the diagnostic experience and use medical imaging to inspire painted elaborations of medically analyzed bodies. I incorporate emotional responses into what are inherently clinical and sterile representations of human anatomies, and combine different visual languages to account for the various and opposing agencies that affect our bodies in times of illness. I create visceral expressions of human experience, identity, and the phenomena that occur when we are given the opportunity to gaze inside our own bodies. By using the diagnostic experience as subject matter, I question what separates the experienced illness from the embedded disease, encourage the consideration of physical and intellectual ownerships of the body, and reflect on the resulting ethical ramifications. Paint is employed for its sensual, visceral qualities, its versatility, and its longstanding tradition. The colors, smells, textures, and sounds of the human body are dynamically portrayed by using paint simultaneously as three-dimensional skin on a surface and a means to representation.