Threat Level Cupcake

inside of a brain under stress, with the hippocampus (seahorses) and the amygdala (almond and almond flower) represented since they’re the parts of a brain that make a person feel not quite safe, surrealist art by Gwenn Seemel — Gwenn Seemel
*Threat Level Cupcake*
2023
acrylic on panel
12 x 6 inches

How does the seahorse with the speech bubble seem to you? And the seahorse whose mouth is closed? What do the flower and the nut add to the conversation?

This is a fanciful depiction of a brain that’s stressed in a way that’s out of proportion with what’s going on. The seahorses in the image represent the hippocampi, which is Latin for “seahorses” and which is also the name for the parts of our brain that are responsible for encoding the emotional context for our memories. The almond nut and almond flower symbolize the amygdalae, which is Latin for “almonds” and which is also the name for the parts of our brain that play a key role in processing our emotional responses, including anxiety.

How would you depict your brain under stress? If your thought process was an animal, what would it be? Why?

To see the making of Threat Level Cupcake, check out this blog post.