Abstract

Science and medicine have held an intriguing fascination for artists over the years from ‘ The Anatomy Lesson of Dr Tulp’ (1632) by Rembrandt to more recently the pharmacist shop cupboards of Damien Hirst. In engaging with the life, illness, death natural cycle contemporary artists have drawn on the classification, cataloguing and display techniques of social anthropology and archaeology as well as the tracing and ordering strategies of forensic science and criminology.The body also evolved as a significant theme especially in the 1980’s and 90’s in Ireland with the backdrop of political violence in the North of Ireland and the discourse on women’s ownership of their bodies in the Republic of Ireland. There was also the global threat of and discourse on Aids.This paper then will analyse the practices of a number of Irish artists who drew on medicine, anatomy, gynaecology and pathology to explore either body related issues/ dilemmas or in more formal abstract and metaphysical pursuits to register and map a life force or ‘lost’ spaces once inhabited by something.