While a doctor by profession, Harini Narayan is a talented artist, photographer, deep-sea SCUBA diver and someone with a great passion for archaeology and ancient civilizations.
Born in India, she spent 35 years of her working life in the UK as an Obstetrician and Gynaecologist dedicated solely to the NHS. She recently retired after 26 years as a Consultant in Obstetrics and Gynaecology. During that time, she received several national awards in the UK and international acclaim for her services and innovations in Obstetric practice. She lives in England.
Harini’s artistic ability started in childhood, but despite winning a scholarship to study art, medicine became her chosen profession. Her avid interest in art continued despite her hectic professional life.
Illustrations for medical exhibitions were the start of her exploring art within medicine. During her senior training years, her research involved confocal microscopy to study human placentae, both healthy and diseased. This brought her very ‘up close and personal’ to the fascinating world of micro-imaging technology. Later, emerging cutting-edge imaging technologies such as SEM (Scanning Electron Micrography) allowed her to appreciate the beauty of the microcosmic architecture within cells, tissues and organs, each as breathtaking as life in the deep sea or images from outer space. “As an artist, a physician and surgeon, I do keep seeing a different view, …the beauty of the building blocks we are constructed of, a whole new world still being explored…”
Even in her daily medical practice, Harini says: “ …I found it much easier to explain both simple and highly complex issues to patients and their families when I quickly drew diagrams to complement verbal explanations. Patients found this to be very helpful as well. Art was a second language for me”. Her blogs to accompany the textbook of High-Risk Obstetrics authored by her and published by Oxford University Press, were enlivened by some of her paintings and sketches. Several of her paintings, including portraits, were presented to colleagues on their retirement or moving away from their posts.
She has built a strong and growing reputation for her paintings and photography. Harini has held several solo and group shows of her paintings in prestigious Bangalore, South India galleries. These solo shows received extensive coverage in national newspapers such as the Times of India.
An exhibition of her photography was held at the Zari Gallery, London, in 2023.
“Internal Affairs: Art Within Medicine” is her first solo show in England. She has explored unique themes with each of her paintings, all of which are oils on canvas. Each painting is accompanied by an explanation of what it is, its story, and the science and social context it deals with.
Artist Statement
My paintings in this exhibition, hosted by Zari Gallery, London, portray very different and unusual facets within medicine. Viewers will be drawn into a rare world that’s often quite unlike recognisable medical images. This eclectic collection of my paintings is presented in a manner whereby viewers are hopefully both invested and intrigued by the stories being told. The paintings blend both science and art within Medicine, where some almost surreal images involving transposition, reorientation, deconstruction and reinterpretation with colours have been created.
The use of modern medical imaging technologies such as coloured scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and Plm (Polarized electron micrographs) have inspired me to portray incredible views of what the internal architecture of humans actually looks like, hence the title of this art exhibition.
In my eclectic rendition of medicine- related paintings, I have attempted to highlight fascinating superstitions, myths and societal norms, dating back to several millennia and which continue to influence healing practices and systems of medicine worldwide. Other paintings uncover little known historical and cultural themes that have evolved into modern Western medicine.
This is my own interpretation of the world of Internal Affairs: Art Within Medicine with aspects of Medicine that I find intriguing . This microcosmos is as fascinating as anything in the deep sea or in alien universes and one that is still being explored.
As an avid SCUBA diver, in some paintings I have even explored themes as disparate such as are there any shared scientific or mathematical principles that cause some deep-sea to look identical to the human brain or why does the capillary bed of blood vessels in humans mirror and was the size of a one-year-old. a coral fan.
Each painting is accompanied by information including both the science and the cultural /social story it tells. The catalogue includes the accompanying write-up of each painting, some brief, others more detailed, especially those that deal with the cultural and historical roots that influence global medical practice even today.
