2005
lightboxes with Duratrans Light Jet prints mounted on acrylic
24 H × 24 W in (60.96 H × 60.96 W cm) each
Each photograph of X-Ray Visions & Morphine Dreams is a digital collage created with found images of X-rays. Bones and intestines form the structure of various domestic objects. The title of the piece was inspired by the story of Bertha Roentgen (wife of William Conrad Roentgen, the discoverer of X-rays). Bertha was thought to be a hypochondriac and in the last years of her life her husband gave her multiple daily injections of morphine to deal with her reportedly psychosomatic illnesses.
Each photograph of X-Ray Visions & Morphine Dreams is a digital collage created with found images of X-rays. Bones and intestines form the structure of various domestic objects. The title of the piece was inspired by the story of Bertha Roentgen (wife of William Conrad Roentgen, the discoverer of X-rays). Bertha was thought to be a hypochondriac and in the last years of her life her husband gave her multiple daily injections of morphine to deal with her reportedly psychosomatic illnesses.
...While it is easy to emphasize the shock effect of Laura Splan’s work, it is much more interesting to make the viewer aware of the meaning behind it...
...Such is the nature of Splan’s work though, with its willingness to explore what happens when you combine the familiar or domestic with the less comfortable realities of the human body and medical biology...although it would be easy to focus on the shock-value of Splan’s work...there’s something far more revealing about having to re-think an image after its process is shown to lie a little closer to the bone than we’re comfortable with...”
Project support provided by the Kala Art Institute Fellowship Award
Exhibitions: Richmond Art Center, West Gallery at TWU
