"Perpetual Star" (2022)

In my most recent body of work, I’ve been creating vibrant paintings based on microscope images and data collected by research scientists.

Normally these images are relegated to small thumbnails embedded in a published paper, only to be seen or understood by others in the same field. My paintings honor and lift up the work of scientists by turning their data into something that’s not just beautiful, but also accessible to different audiences.

For these paintings, I pulled inspiration from microscope images of human epithelial lung cells from Dr. Jennifer Mitchel, who researches how and why cellular collectives can spontaneously exhibit coordinated movement. As she explained, understanding collective cell migration and the cell’s ability to move is fundamental to understanding more about our own development, wound-healing, asthma, and even cancer.

My artistic process for this series incorporates dimensionality into what would otherwise be flat paintings. One way I do this involves etching with a CNC router onto the surface of masonite (a dense board made from compressed wood fibers). If you run your hand across the painting’s surface, you can feel the grooves. I flood these grooves with paint, wiping it away again, adding more. The intuitive process of searching for the right sense of depth and motion – that’s the hard part. Once I’ve found the right balance, I fine tune the details, often using gold to emphasize the grooved outlines of the cells.

Giving credit to Dr. Jennifer Mitchel for the original microscope images that this painting is based on and to Larry Zagorsky for CNC machine assistance and instruction.