By Donna Koehn, Herald-Tribune
Wednesday, February 27, 2013
You have to excuse Chris Baldwin if he’s walking on air.
The student at the Ringling College of Art + Design in Sarasota created this portrait of noted neurosurgeon Ben Carson, who was speaking in town Wednesday as part of the Ringling College Library Association Town Hall lecture series. Carson told the sold-out crowd at the Van Wezel that it was the best portrait he’d ever seen of himself.
The provocative work shows Carson with both a knife and a scalpel, as well as a split in his head.
According to Baldwin: “The concept behind the split is that Dr. Carson is a pioneer in hemispherectomy (which is a brain surgery procedure performed on kids with epilepsy, where they remove one half of the brain). I wanted to do something more conceptual/illustrative and tried to incorporate a sort of ‘duality’ concept to the piece.
