Three artists and a breast cancer researcher will discuss making the hidden experience of illness visible at a free panel from 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 15, at dnj Gallery, 3015 Ocean Park Blvd.
Artist and patient advocate Ted Meyer will moderate the conversation, one of several community events tied to “In Strength,” a group exhibition by artists connected to breast cancer that runs through Dec. 5. The exhibition is part of the gallery’s Art and Med program, and the panel is sponsored by Tower Cancer Research Foundation.
Panelists are artists Ashley James and Jill Covell and Dr. Evanthia Roussos Torres, a breast cancer researcher at USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center.
James was diagnosed with breast cancer at 26. Her series “The Gaze,” “Traces,” “Tether” and “Undulations” places surgical scars beside the synthetic forms of reconstruction.
Covell has aphantasia, which means she cannot form mental images, so during chemotherapy she painted the white blood cells she could not picture fighting the disease. The paintings became the installation “Jill’s Journey,” on view in the exhibition, and a book of the same name. She also leads CALM Art, a healing practice, as a certified art therapy practitioner.
“Creating art and viewing art are both ways to help the brain relieve some of the stress of dealing with cancer,” Covell said.
Roussos Torres, an assistant professor of medicine in oncology at USC, leads a laboratory studying tumor immunology and immunotherapy for breast cancer. A Santa Monica native, she lost her mother to metastatic breast cancer in 2016.
Meyer, who has lived with Gaucher disease since childhood, is artist in residence at the USC Keck School of Medicine, where he curates ArtandMed exhibitions of work by patients. His long-running project “Scarred for Life: Mono-prints of Human Scars” prints people’s scars and records the stories behind them.
Gallery owner and director Pamela Schoenberg said such discussions are important “because they bring patients, artists and doctors into the same room.” In 2024, Schoenberg shifted the gallery from a solely commercial space to one with a charitable and educational mission centered on medical patients and artists.
Tower Cancer Research Foundation, now in its 30th year, funds early-stage cancer research that traditional grants often overlook.
Admission is free. RSVP at dnjgallery.net/contact.html.
Edited by SMDP Staff