11 Dec 2014 - What Lies Beneath
What Lies Beneath - Dr Maeve Doyle, 11 Dec 2014 - 29 Jan 2015
What Lies Beneath - Dr Maeve M. Doyle, 11 Dec 2014 - 29 Jan 2015
What Lies Beneath is Dr Maeve Doyle’s first solo exhibition of her medical illustrations and drawings which are adapted slightly to convey a message ‘Anatomy with a twist, with an injection of life and fun’.
Dr Maeve Doyle is a medical graduate of Trinity College Dublin. After her internship, she worked as an anatomy demonstrator in Trinity College, and then completed Basic Specialist Training in Surgery on the Dublin Surgical Training Scheme. Dr Doyle then completed Higher Medical training in Clinical Microbiology and is now a Consultant Microbiologist in University Hospital Waterford and St Luke’s General Hospital, Kilkenny. She is a senior clinical lecturer for UCC and also lectures on the Orthopaedic teaching programme for RCSI.
The Exhibition opens on Thursday 11th December 2014 and runs until Thursday 29th January 2015.
The artist likes to draw anatomically accurate images which are adapted/altered slightly to convey a message - ‘Anatomy with a twist, with an injection of life and fun’.
Many of the drawings in the exhibition are from the collection of work she did for Modern Medicine Ireland. Dr Doyle created illustrations for the cover of the journal for over ten years. The drawings show ‘what lies beneath’ both in anatomical terms and when there is a disease process occurring. The illustrations ‘tell a story’ or ‘convey a message’ e.g. in the image of the heart, a cross-section of the heart is portrayed as an ash-tray to demonstrate the link between smoking and heart disease.
The artist is a visual learner and believes in the power of the visual aid. In medical school, trainee doctors learn ‘lists’ of factors affecting disease. In her work, the artist tries to turn the ‘list’ into an image e.g. in the image of the fractured bone, the artist’s ‘twist on anatomy’ is used to illustrate the factors that affect fracture healing.
The artist also enjoys drawing people, both as portraits and caricatures. In her caricatures, she also tries to incorporate things that represent ‘What Lies Beneath’. In the image of the Microbiologist in the laboratory, for example, ‘What Lies Beneath’ is a love of shoes, an interest in antique furniture and a high coffee consumption! In the caricature, the artist also includes a separate frivolous ‘worm world’ in the background, just for fun (this of course, is artistic licence and a stark contrast to the reality of the usual Microbiology laboratory!).
The exhibition also includes some simple black and white drawings illustrating surgical anatomy and surgical technique. Many of these drawings were requested by colleagues and were used as teaching aids. Her illustrations have also been used for the RCSI e-learning programme, ‘BeST online’.
Her illustrations have also been used for patient information leaflets for the Vascular Department in University Hospital Limerick and the Cardiology Department, St James’s Hospital, Dublin and in the book ‘A Practical Guide to Echocardiology’ (Asmi MH and Walsh M, Chapman and Hall Medical, 1995).
The influence of artist’s work in Microbiology can be seen in the images depicting viruses and hand hygiene. The image of an aeroplane with three viruses exiting the craft is very apt today. In the cover of Modern Medicine November 2004 for example, the ‘shepherd’s crook-shaped’ virus on the left represents Ebola!
