X-rays and other visions ======================== * Gerald Beaulieu *X-ray Specs* is the title of an exhibition of work that originated from my examination of images used in diagnosis. The first thing that struck me about these images was how beautiful they were. Many, using some of the most modern techniques, produced abstract blobs of pulsating colour that captured the human form in a compelling way. What struck me next was what clinicians were trying to do with these images: to peer inside living people and see what makes them tick. Is this not also what so many artists try to do? Finally, I noticed that these images are objects unto themselves: they try to measure intangible things by measuring temperature, blood flow or tissue density. This is not what you would see if you cut someone open and took a look inside. FIGURE 1 ![Figure1](http://www.cmaj.ca/https://www.cmaj.ca/content/cmaj/162/6/838/F1.medium.gif) [Figure1](http://www.cmaj.ca/content/162/6/838/F1) Figure 1. Gerald Beaulieu, *Tinkers Damned* (detail, illuminated), 1997-1998. Drawing and x-ray collage on light box, 213 × 366 cm. As I studied these images it became apparent to me that they were subject to a fair amount of interpretation and speculation. I thought I would use them for some speculation of my own. The work entitled *Head Space* does this directly by presenting 56 portraits of heads or brains on 6 square panels, 9 heads on each, arranged as you would see CT scans in an operating room. They combine actual medical images with my own constructions in a playful attempt to represent what's inside our heads. *Skin, Trunk, Limb* and *Sapling* are a suite of four works, each displayed on a metal-capped pedestal table. These pieces originated from discoveries I made around my property of the bits and pieces of life's presence. I have found bones, carcasses, snake skins, empty cocoons - all signs of life's passing from one stage to another. In these pieces I have tried to address the organic fragility and elegance of the body. Displaying them in a clinical style, as specimens on tables, was an attempt to contrast them with the high-tech nature of the other images and to deal with the fact that, despite the best of technologies, we are mortal beings made of flesh and blood. FIGURES 2 and 3 ![Figure2](http://www.cmaj.ca/https://www.cmaj.ca/content/cmaj/162/6/838/F2.medium.gif) [Figure2](http://www.cmaj.ca/content/162/6/838/F2) Figure 2. Gerald Beaulieu, *Sapling,* 1999. Driftwood and seaweed, 86 × 30 × 25 cm. ![Figure3](http://www.cmaj.ca/https://www.cmaj.ca/content/cmaj/162/6/838/F3.medium.gif) [Figure3](http://www.cmaj.ca/content/162/6/838/F3) Figure 3. Gerald Beaulieu, *Head Space* (detail), 1999. Mixed media, 1.2 × 1.2 m. *Tinkers Damned* is a large x-ray collage that can be operated by the viewer using floor switches that activate the fluorescent lights behind the panels. Switched on, the lights illuminate a sequence of birth, life and death. When it is switched off, drawings reproduced from the work of William Blake and painted on the surface of the x-rays are visible. Blake dealt with the world as an artist, mystic and poet, and his chosen images depict the same birth-life-death sequence. However, to see the x-rays, to access the scientific realm and what it reveals, you have to turn on the lights that hide Blake's drawings. The on-off nature of the piece illustrates the division between the mystic and the scientific, while illustrating the beauty and complexity of both. *X-ray Specs* is on view at the Confederation Centre Art Gallery & Museum, Charlottetown, PEI, until April 16.