THE RIGHT AND LEFT SID
" I learned to recognize
the thorough and primitive duality of man; I saw that, of the two natures
that contended in my field of consciousness, even if I could rightly be said
to be either, it was only because I was radically both, even before the course
of my scientific discoveries had begun to suggest the most naked possibility
of such a miracle, I had learned to dwell with pleasure, as a beloved daydream,
on the thought of the separation of these elements."
Dr. Henry Jekyll
Summer
1979:
I wanted to portray the split in my personality that I always wrestled with
and decided to try an experiment. I put a patch on my left eye and drew the
right side of my body in the mirror, using my right eye and right hand, then
did the reverse and drew with my left hand for the very first time. To my surprise,
not only could I draw equally well but it brought out an elemental side
of me that I never had portrayed before. It actually felt like two different
sides were coming out when I used each hand(and at 19, I was not yet aware of
the brain hemisphere studies). The right side expressed the usual angry, pained
impatient self I had always depicted while the left showed for the first time
a quiet and reflective side -the perfect mate to the other half.
Years later, I would find the same divisions in all human faces to the extent
that I could analyze a new face and read personality and abilities), the visual
and the manual fields(how we project our brain hemispheres automatically on
the right and left side of a drawn face(see the DRUGS cover), and how
brain lateralization affects right and left handed painting.
you can see the same basic
psychological duality expressed in separate drawings by the right and left
hands(center) as well aswithin the same drawing by the right hand only.
Years
later, I began to paint almost full time with the left hand. By then (through
my studies of faces), I saw clearly how the different brain hemispheres
are reflected in the body. Drawing with separate hands bought a new dimension
to this split. For example, found the right hand depicted objects from within
themselves feeling their weight and “object-”ness, while the left
instead naturally described relationships between surfaces and the space around
objects. This corresponded to the object oriented left hemisphere(right side
of body) and spatially oriented right hemisphere described in scientific literature.
There was also a psychological duality with each hand that I used to set up
compositions, painting some areas with the left hand and others with the right(below).
