Saturday 14 November 2015

Food on the Brain

Food On The Brain

I just watched a documentary about how the food we eat affects our brain, I found it really fascinating how junk food can alter our brain chemistry to such an extent that it becomes an addiction ( Link to the documentary). 

Screenshot from 'Food on the brain'
Time stamp - 44:28

In the documentary Stephen Nolan travels to America to explore the latest research into how what we eat affects our brain and how we think about food. I'm quite interested in the differences or similarities between disorders like Anorexia, Bulimia and Obesity, are they any different in how they are triggered or how they affect your brain?

One new set of studies has really surprised me as I didn't consider how what you eat can affect your baby in the womb, I knew that if you under eat there are serious health risks but what I didn't consider is the reverse. The study showed that if you eat junk food when you are pregnant the baby can be at risk of being addicted to junk food at an early age and also be more prone to conditions like autism.

Vikki Stevens is an emerging artist interested in many areas including body image, mental health and abstraction. Her latest series of work aims to show how images and perceptions of women are “put- together”/ manufactured, and how these images and perceptions affect how women feel about their own body image. Vikki’s ideas for her artwork are expressed in mediums such as paint, collage and sculptural objects, mostly incorporating repurposed images from magazines and found documents. Artists such as Tracey Emin and Hannah Hoch have a large influence on her work. Both the personal perspective and distorted images play a major part in creating pieces that discuss personal as well as cultural issues within mainly the western world/media sphere. Stevens is planning on developing her work into a more abstract sphere to investigate feelings that she has herself and how she can communicate them by using and developing abstract techniques, continuing with collage as a starting influence. Currently the materials and processes she has used in her past work and the work in development are having a large impact on how the work develops and the message behind the work is entirely open. Rather than having a stand out message Stevens is now moving towards a more indirect way of working, focusing more on feelings rather than statements. Current concerns within the work reflect how Stevens feels about herself in day-to-day life and how outside influences affect her and her work. More specifically Stevens is dealing with feelings of anxiety, panic attacks, depression and how she feels as an individual in the world. Artists such as Gerhard Richter, Barbara Kruger, Yago Hortal and Steve Salo are having a large impact on the current work in development.

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