Forensic Art: 

“Any art that aids in the identification, apprehension, or conviction of criminal offenders, or that aids in the location of victims or the identification of unknown deceased persons.”   (Karen Taylor)

Francesco Bertinatti (fl. mid-1800s) (anatomist), Mecco Leone (artist), Turin, 1837-39. Lithograph.

I understand that some might say a large part of my endless curiosity is morbid.  I’ve heard this often enough that I thought a good way to start the discussion o forensic art would voice some thought and share some study as to why.

Why certain themes in medicine and nature are regarded by some as morbid, and why I, personally, am so interested in these disturbing and unpleasant aspects of life.

The answers to the first part of that question I quickly discovered are extremely complex, so much so as to keep me from explaining throughly.  I surmise that the reason certain themes are regarded as morbid depends a great deal on cultural, history, geographies, religions, politics, evolution and so on.  Suffice it to say, I will leave the explanations as to the cultural taboo of death and the morbid to the many greater minds working on the question.

As for the second part of that question, “what’s my personal attraction to the macabre?”, that I can illuminate.  In describing my own experiences I’ll attempt to explained briefly why I continually find my work exploring the grim or ghastly; how I ended up learning two dimensional and three dimensional forensic facial reconstruction.  I hope to shine a light on this dark connection to my art and to my thesis.

First and foremost, I look to the dramas and tragedies of others to see how to better handle my own life.  In coping with and preparing for what life presents I’ve come to cultivate a certain beloved wonder in the macabre twists of fate and nature.  The unfairness, irony and synchronicity that make up life all have lessons to teach. I try not to ignore these lesson even though they my disturb me.

I once asked my sister if her fiancee’s family knew about our history, our families secrets.  “No. Of course not.”  She explained to me that she had learned long ago not to tell “ugly stories to beautiful people”.

But those hidden tragic stories need to be told.  They are how we as individuals and a societies heal and develop.  For that to happen, these stories need a sympathetic audience. It is important to me to look at these morbid, macabre, sad, even depressing stories and experience the narratives that most people don’t want to look at, hear about, or be near.

One of my favorite poems explores this same fascination, Design, by Robert Frost.

On a white heal-all, holding up a moth
Like a white piece of rigid satin cloth
Assorted characters of death and blight
Mixed ready to begin the morning right,
Like the ingredients of a witches’ broth
A snow-drop spider, a flower like a froth,
And dead wings carried like a paper kite.
What had that flower to do with being white,
The wayside blue and innocent heal-all?
What brought the kindred spider to that height,
Then steered the white moth thither in the night?
What but design of darkness to appall?
If design govern in a thing so small.

Many people associate a morbid fascination with sadomasochism or the occult. (citation) There are numerous reasons for this, from our deepest instincts for survival to the perpetuation of this visceral reaction in entertainment and media.  And as much as I love a good horror, mystery or suspense I have always been bothered by the phenomenon of suffering as amusement, devoid of empathy or thought.  I do not see beauty in suffering, nor do I believe pain can be exquisite.  I do not believe deformed infants floating in formaldehyde are “cool” or any less tragic then the death of any child.

What I do believe is that life will be surprising, strange and tragic.  I believe that the pain and suffering of one life can teach us something valuable and that it’s up to us to not look away from these stories in disgust or sadness.

Bernhard Siegfried Albinus, 1749

Charles Estienne, 1546

My interest in forensic art started with a love of figurative art and medical illustration.

My interest in figurative art and medical illustration stem from a desire to understand my own body and how nature can go wrong.

My sister and I both have scoliosis, a skeletal disease of the spinal column. I have a double S curve with reverse lordosis and an unfused sacrum.  I suffer from chronic pain due to permanent nerve damage in my left leg and foot.  One of the most painful experiences of my life was when my arch collapsed due to these damaged nerves.  A lot of X-rays of us were taken growing up, to the degree that it’s been suggested as a possible cause of my infertility.  I still get a lot of X-rays, CT scans and MRIs even now.My sister Julia had it much worse however. She was disfigured.

My sister was what most people think of when they think of a hunch back.  She wore a Boston back brace for most of our time in junior high and high school. We are eleven months apart in age. We and had the same friends and were in some of the same class together growing up. I experienced her suffering ver acutely. At 18, she had spinal surgery for eight hours. Two metal rods with fourteen hooks where inserted into her back, “straightening” her spine. In eight hours she grew six inches.  My sister was never the same; another story too deep to elaborate on here and now and deserving it’s own response.  The point to be understood in my early and repeated exposure to these kinds of medical problems, was that this was the beginning of my interest in the human form and looking at the inside, the layers beneath the surface.

Years later when I would be exploring ways to use my skills in a more meaningful way that would be of some use to society, I would combine these interest of the macabre, science, medicine, art, anatomy, and the desire to tell a human story into my interest and training in forensic facial reconstruction.

I volunteered my services a forensic artist for several years before changing course once more to focus back on research, design, and fine art.  My experience in forensics helped not only my ability to draw and sculpt the human face, but it also help me to connect powerfully to the stories of others.

My activities and interests throughout my life can be seen as a series of curious connections.  Although, not always in straight lines or clean paths, these connection all smoothly, without effort, lead to my thesis: fictional stories of real people intertwined in macabre, dramatic and tragic circumstances.  It is also not surprising that the final form should be located in a museum and take the shape of an interactive sculptural puzzle that rewards the viewer for making the effort to understand.