Megan Lindeman is an artist and a professor. She mixes paint and pigments with oxytocin. Oxytocin is a hormone and acts as a neurotransmitter in the brain and is involved in a lot of complex brain behavior like bonding and trusting.
Radicalized, Small Threats and Of Course the Sunrise
The multi part paintings in this series belong to a body of work titled Radicalized, Small Threats, and Of Course the Sunrise. These works are made from pigments and paint that has been mixed with hormones and then painted onto paper and canvas. The hormone being used is called oxytocin. As stated in other places within this website oxytocin is a hormone involved in complex brain activity like bonding and trusting. Literally, oxytocin is the tangible substance pulsing through all the intangible materials that create feelings of love, trust, togetherness, and general bonding. I use the molecule as a conceptual anchor in swirling and sometimes ambiguous forms of color and pattern. The colors, patterns, and shapes are often informed by nebulous emotion and fleeting feelings as well as aesthetic references to my early childhood and political engagements from this past decade. In this particular body of work oxytocin is the anchor within dark areas of swirling color, references to 90’s era aesthetics (“Laura Ashley” prints and colors like “hunter green” for example), as well as shapes and colors referencing the so-called ISIS flag. The presence of oxytocin in this particular body of work speaks towards our constant ability (most present during childhood) to trust and bond and connect with individuals even in the face of political upheavals like war, terror, and extreme opposition.
