A
few years ago, I discovered a series of radiographic photos of
microbes in a biology book hidden on the shelves of a used book
store. I was immediately drawn to the images because of the
surprising similarity in form and colour that they held to previous
work of mine that was completely unrelated in theme and source
material. This initial curiosity grew into an art project in which I
am now seeking out images related to microbiology and medical
research in sources ranging from obscure scientific publications to
clippings from local newspapers. After sorting through this
material, I embark on a series of sketches in an attempt to work out
which of these collected images are best suited in both form and
concept to eventually become the basis of a painted composition. While
going about the process of building up layers of paint and the
depiction of each virus, bacterium, or parasite I spend a lot of time
asking myself how this image can operate as a symbol relating to a
larger platform of ideas.
Initially,
there was a rather broad selection of source material that consisted
of just about anything that is regularly put under a microscope,
while I formed my criteria almost exclusively on aesthetics as I
found this new miniature world surprisingly beautiful. But as time
went on and the project grew in scope, I was drawn increasingly
towards microbes that have been known to cause unpleasant diseases.
Names such as “Ebola, HIV, and Malaria” or more recently “Mad
Cow Disease, SARS, and Asian Bird Flu” can inspire very menacing
associations and I came to focus on the cold fear that such invisible
beasties can imprint on our collective imagination.
I
consider myself generally unscientific in character and interests,
and while portraying organisms that are often invisible to the naked
eye, I have wondered if these microbes actually even exist and what
makes them different from the witches, demons, and “bad blood”
that supposedly caused people to be ill before the Enlightenment of
the 18th century. This has developed on the
other end of
the spectrum into a tendency to marvel at the advent of the
scientific method as a rather unique system of belief and pursuit of
ideas, because large chunks of scholarship are consistently thrown
out as no longer relevant when old assumptions are challenged by new
theories and discoveries. I know of no other system of thought that
has been so adaptive throughout its history.
This all leads me to the conclusion that what I
am doing here is using
hand-made visual illustrations of microbes and parasites, responsible
for the most
dangerous diseases that exist in the modern world, as metaphors for
social dysfunction. This is concentrated specifically on the role
that fear plays and how it motivates different elements of our
society. Making paintings that are like the mutterings of a
hypochondriac is to me a type of alchemical experiment or
pseudo-science with the goal of investigating the rationalized system
of fear that now seemingly dominates all forms of public
debate, whether scientific, political, or social.
