Blend : Art Sci Exhibition
This exhibition is an introduction to artists who are using science and technology as a resource to explore new forms of creative expression… It might be through the process of collaboration, use of scientific instrumentation, or borrowing from the eyes of scientists for research material. A place to ponder in the wonder and curiosity of the world; shared by both the artist and the scientist, through painting, printmaking, photography, sculpture, digital and moving image.
Artists can bring a new spin on Science, dissect ideas, and then put it back together in a different way. “Artists visualizations not only expand the audience of science, they also challenge the familiar and unquestioned assumptions by extending beyond the constraints of the present to imagine alternative possibilities.” 1
Presented in association with the New Zealand International Science Festival, the theme of the festival for 2010 is Food for Thought. Artists: Claire Beynon, Catherine Cocker, Nicola Gibbons, Pete Gorman, Sue Marshall, Sue Novell, Laura Blake, and Robyn Webster.
1. Anker, AS & Nelkin, D – ‘The Molecular Gaze’, Cold Spring Harbour Laboratory Press, New York, 2004
Rocda Gallery, Dunedin, New Zealand, 2010
Changing Structures – Series
The twentieth century has fundamentally changed the chemical environment of every species, and more than 3500 man-made chemicals have made their way into our food. An excess of these chemicals or ‘anti-nutrients’, is the cause of many of today’s diseases, in that they stop nutrients being absorbed or used by our cells.
I will never forget meeting a man at a health talk. He was a farmer who shared with me that he had leukemia. He said to me: “No one ever told me my illness was linked to my diet.” Just as you cannot see the pesticides on the apple you are about to eat, this series is an artist re-presenting what we can’t see beneath the surface, imagining residues and warnings of the complex environment we now live in.
This series of paintings convey beauty, a sense of awe, respect and recognition of the complexities of our actively working cells. There is also an underlying tension or suggestion of corrosion, a warning of other complexities at work, or at large. The palette is a metaphor for these toxins, picturing a chemical reaction occurring, bubbling under the painted surfaces.
Dishing out the cancer cells is a digital image of a painting which was created after studying microscopic images of cancer cells. In essence, it is a digital image of a painting of a digital image.