Artist and Scientist transform photographs of neural networks into works of art

06-18-2019

“Cultivo", the exhibition by Juana Gomez, is based on the work of Dr. Felipe Court, principal of the Center for Integrative Biology of the U. Mayor.

The concepts of Art and Science came together to give life to the work of the renowned national artist, Juana Gomez, whose work has been cataloged as a true anatomical study, since it links disciplines such as mathematics and biology with photography, drawing and the embroidery.

Thus, her creation, called "Cultivo", arises from his dialogues with Dr. Felipe Court, principal of the Center for Integrative Biology (CIB) of the U. Mayor, who has focused his work on investigating how the nervous system works and why neurons die.

"This link arose from the need to take science out of research laboratories. As a way of transmitting science in another way, "explains Court, who curated the images that Gomez would later use, which are related to mechanisms of nervous system formation and degeneration

"What I did was select photographs of neural networks that had certain characteristics," explains the academic, who adds: "We use the same images for the research we do, which are obtained using state-of-the-art microscopes."

A Prolific Dialogue:

for its part, Juana Gomez, who lives in Santiago and she's represented by a gallery in London, for which she is preparingf another exhibition that will be inaugurated in 2020, began to link her work with these themes in a more forceful way starting in 2015, when parents of his daughter's school, who were dedicated to scientific divulgation, suggested that she must contact Dr. Court.

I was presenting an exhibition and he went to see it. We started to talk about this way of "embroidering" the body and I uncovered my head a bit, since I was in parallel investigating the issue of textile colors and how the fluoride color comes in later, with the use of acrylics, due to that fluorine can not be generated in natural wool" Says the artist.

In this way, Gomez reports that Felipe Coourt told her how he uses neurons and fluorescence for his research, which finally complemented the work of the artist, who until that moment spoke of veins and rivers, but without having a greater record of how she operated that more subtle transmission at the level of the nervous, circulatory and lymphatic systems.

"Felipe was for me a source to obtain information, because in my work I start with an idea and I begin to investigate. So, he was a super generous with his information and his time", Says Juana Gomez.

This is how "Cultivo emerged, a work in which the artist used as reference one of the photos of the researcher, which was exhibited in Open Dark Art.

"Felipe gave me the photographs with the axes (x, y, z) and together with an engineer we made the calculations and the plans, giving life to a cube with thousands of knots and grommets. A three- dimensional embroidery that imitates the cultivation of neurons", describes Gomez, who ended by saying that her interest in this matter arises from the critical period that is lived at a human and ecological level, which makes her question how to link her work with society to educate future generations.

It should be noted that the work of the national artist was recently reviewed by the New York manazine Christie's