UAB Home | Dave's Artwork | NBL Home | SfN Home | MCCS Home | AlaNsciBlueprint | Contact Us

J. David Sweatt, Artist and Scientist

As a neuroscientist, David Sweatt works everyday with real things he cannot see. But as an artist, Dave uses abstract forms to convey this reality’s complexity.
Through his painting, Dave tries to communicate the complexities of the molecules and neural circuits in the human brain. “Modern science is really an almost purely abstract endeavor,” he says. “Things we can see with our naked eye have already been revealed. My colleagues and I work with phenomena of the nervous system that are intrinsically abstract. But they are very real, reproducible phenomena and I try to express those phenomena through art. All our creativity, emotions, perceptions, memories and beliefs arise from the coordinated action of the nerve cells that make up our central nervous system. My work is a way to communicate the complexities of the molecules and neural circuits that underlie our behavior.”
“Artists and scientists have in common the goal of presenting a valid and novel interpretation of their observations in nature. My paintings deal with the contemporary scientific study of nervous system function from the anatomical parts we can see to the submolecular space we cannot see.”
Selected Works: