Alcohol (ethanol)
8” x 10”
Acrylic on canvas
2009
Alcoholic drinks have been known since ancient times, when the principles of rotten fruit were applied on a large scale to vats of grapes, and the product was bottled. The active ingredient in all alcoholic beverages is ethanol, although similar compounds like the toxic methanol are found as byproducts of fermentation and distillation. (it is methanol — also found in wood smoke — that gives scotch much of its characteristic smoky flavor)
Alcohol is an extremely versatile drug, acting in at least a dozen ways on the brain alone. Most importantly, it potentiates the neurotransmitter GABA, resulting in many of the same effects as barbiturates and benzodiazepines: sleepiness, relaxation and memory loss. Antagonism of NMDA receptors provides a pleasurable feeling, and in greater doses, disorientation and brain damage.
Alcohol is a broad subject, and rather than verbally reproduce the famous chart, I’ll close by noting this: Although monkeys have long been known to enjoy alcohol, new research shows that while the percentage of binge drinking monkeys, about 5%, is the same as among humans, monkeys are only half as likely as humans to abstain altogether.
These molecules are rendered as space-filling models, in a natural, low-energy conformation, and displayed from an angle that shows off as much of their structure as possible. The atoms are color-coded, with carbon being black, hydrogen white, and oxygen red. They are painted in artist-quality acrylics, on gessoed canvas
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