A Refractory Gaze: The Power of Figurative Painting in Medical Advocacy

Abstract: This exhibit, titled "A Refractory Gaze", will display three oil paintings of medical students. Each painting will be accompanied by text providing information about the individual in each painting and their motivations for pursuing medicine. The exhibit will also be accompanied by wall text outlining my motivations for this project:

In medicine, the body is pathologized by the clinical gaze, circumscribing patients into a site of disease and object of biological scrutiny. Philosopher Michael Foucalt first described this process as the “medical gaze” and argued that the gaze is an authoritative and analytical process enmeshed in dynamics of power between physician and patient. Social critic bell hooks offers a different way of looking—the “oppositional gaze”. Originating from Black feminist film theory, the oppositional gaze is an act of resistance and a way for Black women to challenge the visual politics of white womanhood. The title for my series of figurative paintings, A Refractory Gaze, takes inspiration from both scholars to construct a gaze that moves beyond the medical gaze and nurtures the act of “looking as resistance”. Refractory carries several meanings in this project: refractory as stubborn or resistant; refractory as in a disease that does not respond to treatment; refractory as in the distortions of images by the interactions of light through water. Grounded in narrative figuration, my paintings ask: how have its subjects resisted harmful institutional practices? What does it mean to “look back” at a healthcare system that views healthcare as a privilege rather than a right?

Keywords: painting, medical humanities, art