Lee Lee-min's medical illustrations may not fit everyone's conception of "art." But aside from their undeniably significant contribution to the advancement of medical understanding, her paintings impress some viewers as works of remarkable and unexpected beauty.
As avant-garde artists seek to challenge social norms and stretch the boundaries of what is acceptable for public presentation, viewers are frequently shocked and sometimes repelled at what they see--as several celebrated cases in New York museums in recent years have shown. The art of Lee Lee-min, who first held an exhibition of her works in 1996, may have the same effect on some viewers. With stark accuracy, her drawings depict blood vessels, nerves, bones, organs, and other body parts cut open. But Lee's intention is to educate, not to shock. She is a staff member of Taipei's Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, and the paintings she has produced over the past ten years are designed to help surgeons understand what they will encounter in the course of an operation.
"My friends wonder why I draw such pictures, which may look ghastly and unnerving to them," Lee says. "But I'm merely producing design drawings of the human body, just like an architect prepares a blueprint before the building of a house." A commercial design major in college, she expected to enter the world of business. Before learning in 1992 that Chang Gung was seeking to hire a medical illustrator, she never imagined that she might wind up in that field. But at that time Lee was deeply concerned about her mother, who was reluctant to consult a physician despite failing eyesight from a severe cataract condition. Working in a hospital, Lee reasoned, could help her both to find a good doctor and to learn how to ease her mother's fears. She thus applied for and won the job at the hospital's Department of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery and started a career that has made her name well known in medical circles not only at home but internationally.
Gradually Lee has sharpened her skills by studying anatomy as well as by observing the human body during surgical operations. But as helpful as that learning experience has been, it has also sometimes been disconcerting. She recalls how uncomfortable she felt after the first time she sketched a real human skull, but now she has long grown accustomed to her working environment. Lee typically remains in the operating room to observe the whole surgical procedure before returning to her studio to record it from memory with her paintbrush. "Inhale deeply and you feel calmer in the face of those horrible scenes," she says. It no longer bothers her to handle a skull when she needs to use it as a model. "I regard it with respect," says Lee of the male skull that has been in her studio for years. "It helps me improve my skills, which in turn will help doctors a lot. I feel grateful for what it does for the living."
To enhance her professionalism, the hospital sent Lee to Atlanta, Georgia, for three months in 1993-1994 to learn from William M. Winn, an authority on anatomical illustration relating to craniofacial surgery. Already quite adept at watercolor painting, Lee learned the skill of pencil drawing from her American teacher. During this period, Lee also grew familiar with airbrush painting, which is commonly used in medical illustration. She has not used this method back in Taiwan, however, because the high humidity increases the likelihood of inhaling the paint spray. Instead, Lee relies mainly on watercolors, though many people who see her works mistake them for oil paintings. "I apply many layers of paint to achieve that oil-painting effect," she notes. "So far as I know, this method is unique to me." Besides the technical skills, Lee's American mentor also taught her the importance of communicating closely with medical specialists. Lee regards herself as highly fortunate to have studied with Winn, because opportunities to gain top-level training in medical illustration are rare. She notes that only five medical schools in the world--all of them in the United States--have set up departments of medical illustration.
Wei Fu-chan, the vice superintendent of Taipei's Chang Gung Hospital, explains that good illustrations can be invaluable when a doctor wishes to introduce a new surgical method--whether a total innovation or a modification of an existing technique--to the medical community. After arranging for a medical illustrator to observe the operation and record the procedure, the surgeon will then include the illustrations together with his text when presenting a conference paper or journal article. "Well-executed illustrations can be very helpful because they show precisely the parts you want to focus on, ignoring the unrelated tissue and blood vessels," Wei observes. "Photos can't do that--usually you can only see a blur of blood and flesh." The illustrations invariably help the author to attract more attention to his subject and deepen the level of his audience's understanding. "I hope that people can grasp two-thirds of the thesis just by looking at my illustrations," says Lee Lee-min.
"Lee is outstanding because she spares no effort in seeking the truth," notes Wei Fu-chan. "She likes to discuss every detail of her work with the doctors involved." That attribute is important in a good illustrator because the human body is so complicated and every illustration represents a new challenge, especially when dealing with a sophisticated organ such as the human brain. "Today, when performing brain surgery, doctors tend to cut an opening as small as possible, so it's not easy for me to observe the organ during the operation," she explains. Instead, she must increasingly rely on post-operation guidance from the surgeons.
Her years of devotion to her job have proved rewarding. At first, Lee did not sign her name on her works, but later, after receiving so much positive feedback, she decided to do so. As Chang Gung's world-class surgeons have been publishing one well-received paper after another, her reputation has soared among both doctors and medical illustrators. Today her art can be seen not only in leading international medical journals, but also in textbooks used by medical students in the United States and elsewhere around the globe.
When Chang Gung held two medical seminars in 1996, the hospital introduced Lee's works to the public in an exhibition--the first medical illustration exhibition ever held in Taiwan. Chang Gung, founded in 1976 by Wang Yung-ching, the founder and still chairman of the Formosa Plastics Group--and named after his father--is famous for its expertise in reconstructive surgery. Last year when the hospital organized the Inaugural Congress of the World Society for Reconstructive Microsurgery, held in Taipei, it staged another exhibition of over sixty works by Lee. Many visitors at the four-day exhibition expressed admiration for her talent. "Some doctors said they were deeply impressed by my paintings' quality and intricacy, and some even wanted to purchase them as collectors," Lee says. But she prefers not to part with any of her illustrations until she has published them in a complete album at some point in the future. She notes that since doing medical illustration requires excellent eyesight, she doubts whether she will be able to continue in this field after reaching a certain age. When that time comes, Lee says, she is confident that her abilities will bring other opportunities in the field of visual design.
Without question, Lee's works have made a great contribution to the expansion of medical knowledge. But can they also truly be regarded as art, as things of beauty? For Huang Kuang-nan, former director of the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, the answer is decidedly yes. "Fine art is not limited to portraying lovely objects or to expressing inner feelings," wrote Huang, now the director of the National Museum of History, in the catalogue for Lee's 1996 exhibition, which he helped organize. "It is art as long as it centers on thought, which can involve concern for society or insight into the meaning of life." Huang admitted that he was at first taken aback by Lee's paintings, but on later reflection he felt touched by the effects she achieved through a combination of medical learning, fine-art skills, and love for mankind. Some visitors to the second exhibition in 2001 even described Lee's art as reminiscent of Leonardo da Vinci's in its foundation in anatomical knowledge.
M. Samuel Noordhoff, the chairman-emeritus of Chang Gung Memorial Hospital and the one who recommended her for the training course in the United States, believes firmly that Lee's illustrations fully qualify as works of art "because of their technical quality and beauty." This coming fall, Lee Lee-min plans to hold a third exhibition in Taipei. Through the effort of the anatomist wielding a paintbrush, medical illustrations seem to be taking on more than their conventional significance.