Art - YARON S BUTTERFIELD

Why does the eye see a thing more clearly in dreams than the imagination when awake?
- Leonardo da Vinci

My Art

I have enjoyed doing art ever since I was a kid. It has been an outlet to get out thoughts that cannot otherwise be expressed either through text or speech. Sometimes, there are no words to convey what's in our complicated brains. Some of my art has intense and sometimes private meaning for me.

From another perspective, doing art has been extremely healing for me. Both in terms of being calm and in the moment, a type meditation, and a way to surprise myself bringing thoughts from my unconscious to paper and canvas.

Three pieces in the 2021 International Magazine, Brilliance.
Brilliance (My work is on pages 94-95, 104-105, 144-145)

Three pieces in the 2022 International Magazine, Brilliance.
Brilliance (My work is on pages 32-33, 62-63, 88-89)

The video I created linked to our 2017 art show from participants of the brain tumour community (patients, family, caregivers)
Art Show

Please enjoy a collection of my art pieces here.
http://yaronart.weebly.com/

Here is a small collection of cartoon panels I created.
Brain Cells

Always inspired by my late Aunt Barbara Conder - one of her pieces behind me

Perspective of Mind

This acrylic painting conveys my GBM brain cancer experience since my diagnosis in 2004. Treatment was hard—radiation to the brain as shown emanating from the double sun, chemotherapy indicated from the bottle of pills. I experienced much fatigue and “brain fog” as shown by the cloud through a portion of the brain where the tumour was. But the tumour is gone, leaving a gap in my brain to fill with good things and happy moments in life. The brain doesn’t float in the air on its own—I had much support during treatment and ever since giving me strength to stand up and beat the cancer.
During treatment, I had a dream of an elephant that told me everything would be ok. In the Talmud, it is stated that someone who dreams of an elephant, good things will happen to him. At the very least, it gave me the confidence that I would be ok. My daughter is holding my hand as we look back at what my brain was. The double sun is also a symbol of the fact that the radiation led to an element of double vision due to damage to a cranial nerve. One sun is larger than the other, also indicating myself and my daughter. She is the biggest reason I intend to make sure the cancer never comes back.

Steven's Garden

Steven Levine

In 1997, Shirel Levine, in Tsfat, Israel approached a program I was in, Livnot U'Lehibanot and asked if any students would be interested in painting a mural in honour of her son, Steven, who had passed away of cancer.

I jumped at the chance to be involved and my excitement grew when I learned he used to play ice hockey in New York!

Myself and another student designed the mural and started to paint it on the wall of a building. We soon enlisted others from our program to join in and help. Shirel was delighted to see our finished work, gave me a hockey trophy he had won and a puck he had played with.

When I returned to Canada a year later, one of the first things I did was hit the rink and slap Steven's puck into the net. Little did I know at the time of course that I would be hit with my own devastating cancer six year later.

When I returned to see the mural in 2014, I noticed that it had deteriorated greatly. Perhaps the original paint was not of the highest quality. Myself and a few others refurbished the painting and brought it back to life. In this photo, I stand beside the image of Stephan, in his hockey gear taking a big slap shot, sharing our joint love of hockey.

https://yossilinks.com/stevens-garden-blog-by-yaron/

Alexandra and I painting the mural. Tsfat. Fall 1997.

Refurbished painting 2014 (original 1997)

Looking back at my MRI scan from 2004 noticing the tumour in the shape of a heart.

Art Exhibit 2019

Art Exhibit 2023

Please enjoy a collection of my art pieces here:
http://yaronart.weebly.com/