Graduation Year
2022
Document Type
Open Access Senior Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Arts
Department
Art
Reader 1
Adam Davis
Reader 2
Tia Blassingame
Terms of Use & License Information
Rights Information
© 2022 Caroline Young
Abstract
This Studio Art thesis explores how I use my art practice as a chronic pain healing process. It draws on the fundamentals of the neuroscience behind pain and the implications of this science for people with chronic pain. People with chronic pain often turn to alternative healing techniques in their search for relief; my own alternative healing approach comes from my art practice of “pain mapping."
The artistic healing process that I have developed takes inspiration from chronically ill artists such as Frida Kahlo and Anna Cowley Ford. The artistic mapping of my pain that I have developed primarily uses the medium of wire, as the fluidity and malleability of this medium speaks to me the most. By using alternative chronic pain healing tools and inspiration from other chronically-ill visual artists, I have developed an arts practice that incorporates pain neuroscience and seeks to address the mental toll that suffering through invisible pain creates. My thesis helps me visualize an otherwise invisible experience and it allows me to create science-informed space for healing.
Recommended Citation
Young, Caroline, "Making the Invisible Visible: Mapping Chronic Pain Through Art" (2022). Scripps Senior Theses. 1958.
https://scholarship.claremont.edu/scripps_theses/1958
