ANATOMY LAB | Joshua Atlas
“I recently came across a stack of drawings I made over 20 years ago. They were made while observing an anatomy lab for first-year med students. I was not in college myself at the time, but only observing under the pretense I was interested in medical illustration. My intention was to draw from life (death), and my mother, who was a physician, got me in as a professional courtesy. While the anatomy was educational (from what I could make of it) it was the people that I became more interested in.
The med students were so much older; awkward and apprehensive at first, and all too casual but so determined towards the end of the lab. And the cadavers themselves, all different ages and sizes, their lives on full display, as evidenced on the surface and beneath their skin.
It was another of mom's tactics to steer me towards medicine but only enhanced my desire to become an artist. These were clumsy, youthful attempts at drawing from life done quickly on my feet while trying to stay out of the way. But they preserved a memory that would have otherwise remained buried. And that's what drawing is: a tool for learning, communication, storage and safe-keeping and the most candid media for insight into who a person is.”
Joshua Atlas is a drafter by trade but is far more interested in sociovisual art. Atlas lives and works between Albuquerque and Mexico City.