Cardiology is a multi-media body of work by Taline Temizian that employs a myriad of representations of the human heart to examine physical and emotional states of being. In her unflinching representation of personal histories along side experiments in formal composition, the artists’ methods closely match those of the series’ titular science: Cardiology, from the Greek kardia, “heart” and logia, “study”. Ranging from stark, monochromatic silhouettes of the powerful organ, to finely detailed graphs of the forms’ boundaries, and colors evocative of gestural expressionism, works from the Cardiology series display a sharp intuition for intersections between the medical and the philosophical.
The Cardiology series contains a central work whose making has stretched across the project: Elegy for Dad + Noise (2012-2016). Conceived of as a portrait of the artists’ father, a prominent cardiologist whose profession had a profound effect on Temizian’s childhood and subsequent artistic development. This work incorporates object belonging to her father, including his stethoscope and pipe, which operate as synecdoche and metaphorical renderings of Temezian’s formative experiences with the heart – both as an organ of feeling, and of biology.
Subsequent works in the Cardiology series, such as Silent Cardiac Guernica (2015) have gone on to expand this investigation of the heart into the realms of artistic and historical inquiry. Predominantly created between 2010 and 2016, the series evolves through figurative representations, abstraction and conceptual strategies, as well as digital media; marking the beginning of Temizian’s interest in data visualizations of biological phenomena, which she explores in the Networks Project.
