I feel that in my soul, my essence, I am an artist.
I've always thought of myself as a drawer/ painter, mark maker. Every child draws- but its something that's always been with me and has stayed with me.
I studied biology at university- animal developmental biology, and then pursued my PhD in anatomy. As I get older and come to know myself better I realize that it's not a question of art or science: they are not mutually excllusive.
In fact I find many connections between them and find my scientific training useful as an artist.
The connections- both art and science (especially biology) are about looking: observing, understanding, recording. How does the world work and hold together?
Both are about beauty and truth.
I was trained to look closely, analyse hypothesise and experimemt- all very useful in my work as an artist.
In mark making I try different things. There's risk involved and it doesn't always work but that doesn't matter - you learn anyway.
Printmaking I find especially related to my work in biology. I screen print and find it very similiar to histology. In histology I would piece together a 3-D image of a tissue / embryo / organ in my mind, made by looking at sequential 2-D sections of the material.
In screen printing I make 2-D shaped stencils and print sequential layers over each other to produce the illusion of a 3-D image on paper. The process in my mind is exactly the same .
As a bioligist what fasinated me was life- what makes something living as apposed to inanimate?
As an artist I find my work has always been mainly figurative - and if not the human form looking at living things. My figurative work has recently evolved into the study of movement - one of the criteria of life.
In both art and science what interests me is change, evolution- of the individual as well as of the species. And now as an artist, not just the physical developmental changes throughout life, but the emotional, psycological, spiritual changes which occur in us through life experences.
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