Tallmadge Doyle

Artist statement, Origins of Medicine

When preparing copper plates for the intaglio printing process, I often feel like a primitive scientist of some sort working in the laboratory; heating copper plates, melting rosin, etching with acids, dissolving with solvents, all to reach a level of experimentation that may or may not bear fruitful results.

As life does, this creative process occurs as a balancing act of attaining control of and letting go of that control simultaneously. The work is to a large degree experimental, without any more than a vague outcome in mind. It is driven by intuitive impulses and decisions. This experimental approach keeps the process lively and propels the transformation of one image to the next in the flow of the series. The transmuting of the image from print to print is largely about discovering a new result from employing new and different elements.

The connection between ancient spiritual practices and those of science has captured my interest. The Medieval Physicians and Alchemists, their practices and symbology, have become the foundation and inspiration of this series. I searched for the earliest information available and continually uncovered material connecting astrology, alchemy, and the interweaving of the two in relationship to the healing arts (or in relationship to the medical practices of that time period).

The Medieval alchemists, those who were concerned with a transformation and/or the perfection of the soul, are of particular interest to me. For them alchemy was more of an art than a science, and its most important and most interesting aim was the spiritual transformation of the alchemist himself. For the mystical alchemist the art involved both a spiritual process and a chemical process, both the turning of base metals into gold and the transmutation of the alchemist from a state of “earthly impurity” to one of “golden” spiritual perfection.