"This is My Spine"

A Portrait of the Artist as a Strong Woman

"This is my spine,"  says Laura Ferguson, pointing to a graceful figure that curves like a river in one of her luminous paintings. Ferguson, the Master Scholars Program's first artist-in-residence, has created a unique portfolio that depicts how severe scoliosis has shaped her body and the way she lives in it. Her artistic journey is chronicled in the Visible Skeleton Series, which toured nationwide and was exhibited last spring in the Smilow Research Center Gallery.

Ever since she had spinal fusion surgery at 13, Ferguson has had the desire to visualize her rotational deformity in its full dimensions. She first learned anatomy by drawing from a human skeleton, then began to study her own X-rays. In 2000, with the help of Andrew Litt, M.D., associate professor of radiology, and now executive vice president of the Medical Center, she used her own 3-D spiral CT scan to create interior images of her spine.  "I spent so many years wondering what it looked like,"  she recalls,  "and there was my whole torso. It was an amazing moment."

The paintings and drawings form a kind of visual memoir. From the inside out, Ferguson expresses how her body feels and how she's managed to keep her asymmetrical spine in balance.  "Scoliosis is a flawed model of the beautifully designed human musculoskeletal system,"  she says,  "but I wanted to portray it as having its own complex beauty, one that viewed deformity as differentness, and differentness as individuality."

The artist works on richly textured paper, creating several layers of color and pattern before sketching. In a process similar to printmaking, she floats oil paints in water, forming designs, which she then transfers onto sheets of paper. For each sheet, she might repeat the process 20 or 30 times, building up translucent layers of color. These organic forms, which suggest bones and veins and blood, become the underlayers upon which the figurative image is drawn.

Ferguson's work elicits strong responses, particularly from those who have disabilities or unusual anatomies. A woman whose arm and leg were amputated told the artist that she helped her to feel beautiful. In many of the pieces, a man's hands are visible, holding her. To recognize that  "the body is sensual even when it's deformed,"  she says, is critical.

"Creating images of my body that are anatomically accurate, but also personal, has felt empowering,"  says Ferguson,  "as if I were regaining a sense of ownership of my own body."  As artist-in-residence, she has become a presence in NYU Langone's Anatomy Lab, where she seeks to help students learn through drawing, and  "give expression to the emotional repercussions of this intimate involvement with death and the visceral reality of the human body."  Ferguson is creating new works inspired by CT scans taken last June. She hopes to keep going deeper, she says, visualizing the inner body down to the cellular level.