I am pleased to be able to post these wonderful photos of my MedImmune residency artwork taken by Douglas Atfield. These are my wax and mixed media pieces, left- 'Cellular', right- 'Golden Section' and below- 'Thinking'.
This piece is called 'Close-up biology.' I know I have posted my snaps in the process of making these pieces but as the photos Doug has taken are so good I thought I'd post them as a whole body of work.
This piece is 'Galaxy of Cells' and it hangs from the ceiling so that you look up at the piece and see the above layout. Each piece is a hand crocheted green wire cell with a separate turquoise nucleus floating inside it and covered with a network of fine red wire representing actin filaments. I made this piece after seeing an amazing image on an electron microscope that showed cells appearing in a formation a little like galaxies, fractals are very interesting to me and so the micro and the macro reflecting each others patterns became very inspiring.
'Sample(r)', above, is the piece I made inspired by histology slides and is my interpretation of cells on glass slides, some with mutations and some without. Although these mutations represent cancerous growth and the like, I couldn't help seeing beauty and pattern within these slides. I was intrigued by the idea of the visually attractive being so repellant because of what it represents. Also because cancer has become so prevalent and 1 in 2 people will experience it at sometime in their lives I wanted it to become less frightening and for people to have less fear attached to it as so many forms are treated so successfully these days and through work by MedImmune and other pharmaceutical companies treatment is becoming so very specific to the cancer type that it is so much more effective than before.
'Under Attack' is composed of small red bacterial cells crocheted in heavy gage sewing thread and then crocheted antibodies in navy mercerized cotton all of which are pinned to the wall in a fibonacci based pattern reflecting the cell form.
Here you can see it being installed as each piece has to be individually pinned to the wall.
Here are my paper cuts left to right down the page are:
'Cellular', 'Membranes', 'Microvilli', 'Multiply', 'Thinking Cajal', 'Chains', 'Network' and 'Neurology.'
And finally the last piece in this body of work is 'The history within us'. This piece is made of plaster with epindorfs (small plastic test tubes used in the labs) set into it within a wooden frame. It is a floor piece and reflects archeological digs/fossils, DNA and cells. I was referencing the history that can be found in our DNA, the ancestry and genealogical information as well as medical data. There is an element of the same discovery and collection of data going on by scientists looking at DNA and the archeologist uncovering long forgotten historical artefacts.
Next step, find some galleries to show this work!!!
This new piece of I have been working on is called "Thinking out loud" and is made from tubes and a metal ring that have been wrapped in yarn, sewn together and suspended. I later decided to add the red yarn weaving in and out of the piece to represent the way connections are made in our thoughts, neural networks etc.
I had the great joy to see 'Sheila Hicks : Stones of Peace' at the Alison Jacques gallery a week or two ago and it was an absolute pleasure. I have loved Sheila's work for sometime but never managed to see an exhibition in the flesh, (or should I say fibre), before. I found it truly inspiring which you can probably tell from this new piece that I have just shown you.
