The Beauty of Pathology

Pathology and art – two disciplines which, to the lay person, may not seem to have much in common, but have an intrinsic link. Every day pathologists look at shapes and colors on slides. Aside from the very crucial diagnosis that this analysis delivers, it can also bring the artist out in a person, triggering a comparison of what they see through the microscope with a completely unrelated image or encouraging the picking up of a paintbrush. And it’s happening all around the world; pathologists are enjoying sharing their artistic observations and stunning images. Just look at the #PathArt hashtag on Twitter and prepare to be amazed.

In recognition of the artistic splendor of pathology, the European Society of Pathology (ESP) has been running art exhibitions since 2013 to tempt the inner artist out of pathologists. The next exhibition, organized by Sanja Milenkovic, Anna Batistatou and Dina Tiniakos, known as Art Paths, is due to take place at the 27th European Congress of Pathology in Serbia (September 5–9, 2015, Belgrade). And the society wants you to get involved. If you fancy yourself a budding artist or photographer, here’s your opportunity to show off that talent.

For entry submissions to be considered for the exhibition entitled "The soul of laboratory life", they must fall into one of two categories:

• Dynamic expression – exclusive photos that show every day, interesting, funny, unusual scenes of laboratory life, or facial expressions of people from the lab.
  
• Artistic expression – photos of creative works including oil, acrylic, pastel, watercolor, mixed media, collage, pencil drawings, computer-generated images, and other media in which we can see realistic or imaginary laboratory life.

Here we present a small collection of past exhibit entries.

Interested? Go to www.esp-congress.org/virtual-exhibition to find out more.

Good luck!