Making Life Visible: Art, Biology, and Visualization

Feb. 2–June 10, 2018

Curated by Jackie Brown, professor of biology, and Lesley Wright, director of the Faulconer Gallery, Making Life Visible explores the processes of visualization and description in art and biology by featuring work by 17 contemporary artists and scientists, as well as historical material from the 16th to 19th centuries. In the past, biologists and artists had similar training in observation and drawing. Although the fields have diverged, individual practitioners on both sides continue to draw inspiration from one another, finding new ideas in the process of creating images. The exhibition asks: What do artists and biologists see, and how do their ways of seeing challenge and stimulate one another? Subjects addressed in the exhibition range from molecules and cells to organisms and ecosystems and the artists’/scientists’ work in labs, studios, museums, and in the field.