The hippocampus is in the brain. It is about memory. I drew this painting directly with ink on paper, looking at the patterns made by a microscopic slide of a human hippocampus at the Department of Human Anatomy at Glasgow University. The department is a marvellous place. An alchemical treasure. Bottles of potions and racks and racks of slides filled the room where I worked, my thin paper spreading to fill an old wooden table. Behind closed doors in the building, I knew that young doctors were watching the dissection of cadavers. The dissection for my drawing was already done.

The ink buckled the paper. You can see it in the drawing as thin rivulets of grey. I'm glad of this. The three dimensional rivers of the drawing link and situate the image of the hippocampus within the surrounding paper. The rivers are invisible, they can only be seen by their shadow.