Anatomy and Art

David S. Goodsell talks about his process…

The video comes from his recent win at the 2016 Welcome Image Awards for his ebola painting.

We had an exhibit in South Austin not long ago that featured some Salvador Dali works.  And while those were great, and while I was also excited to find some Dr. Seuss works in the same show.  I wanted to type a bit about someone you may not be so familiar with already.  As you first walked in to Art On 5th (which isn’t actually on 5th St at all, but that’s not really important right now), it was impossible not to be taken with a sculpture.

The piece is called “Undersea Queen” and it’s beautiful.  It was not only strikingly eye catching as you walked in, but the included detail continued to impress as you came in for a closer look.

Having spent a lot of time doing anaplastology work, it was clear that these details were taken as impressions, and then worked into the sculpture.  That’s the kind of detail that impresses me, so I wanted to know who this artist was.

So now I’m going to share with all of you, the work of Chris Guarino, who seems to have roots in Denver, San Francisco, Chicago, and now also Austin.  I have to admit, I half expected to find a fellow biomedical visualization alum when I saw Chicago mentioned on his website.  This is just such an exquisite use of impression taking and casting for fine art sculpture.  But instead I found his site on life casting.  So I just wanted to draw a little extra attention where attention is due.  I’m refraining from reposting any images directly from his website here, but please do take a look at the linked sites here.  There are some fantastic pieces in there.

Chris Guarino is also planning an upcoming solo showing at the same location this May 21st which will include work from his Masquerade series, as well as some new pieces.

A friend recently sent me a link to some images by Travis Bedel.  His pieces are called anatomical collages in the writing about them.

This article in Juxtapoz shows a nice little collection of his work.  His anatomy looks right on.  And the fantastic floral motif seems like a fine thing to share on this the spring equinox.

Enjoy!

Ulric Collette’s genetic portraits series has been getting some attention on the internet lately, and I’m going to add to that by pointing out her work here as well.  I’m posting some thumbnails to give you an idea of what she’s been doing.

Please visit her website and take a closer look.  The genetic similarities across the faces are really neat.  I particularly appreciate some of the ones that feature different generations and emphasize how faces change with age.

http://genetic.ulriccollette.com/

Artist, Luke Jerram is making headlines with his new collection of glass sculpture models of viruses.

If you follow this link, you’ll get to David Goodsell’s take on HIV (the first virus shown to the left there) and you can see the similarity.  It’s also a really awesome little interactive breaking down the individual molecular arrangement of the virus.
http://www.rcsb.org/pdb/101/static101.do?p=education_discussion/educational_resources/hiv-animation.html  In case you didn’t know, Goodsell is an outright master of medical illustration and representing molecules and viruses with incredible clarity and accuracy.

Larger images of the glass sculptures can be viewed here through The Verge’s coverage, where I first saw these.  It sounds like he is working with a virologist and a glass blower, and that neither are specifically a specialty for him.  I would love to know the name of the glass blower involved.  These are truly beautifully executed pieces.

This morning I thought that I had things to say, but tonight I can’t remember what they were.  If you are a regular reader, you may have noticed lately that my site has been down a lot.  The issue seems to have something to do with my photo gallery site and php vulnerability that keeps knocking out my photo gallery, painting gallery, and this blog all in one swoop.  It will be resolved.  And I apologize for the inconvenience of late.

Here, let me make it up to you with a couple awesome images from Danny Quirk‘s self dissection series.  He is doing some really cool stuff.

I encourage you all to go and check him out on your own!

I have been meaning to post this one for a while now, but the holidays got away with me. Sofia Wraber and Nanna Kereutzmann first put together a documentation of 101 men from ages 0-100 as a class project for the Danish School of Media and Journalism.  They then went on to create the same style of series with 101 women.

http://www.onehundredone.dk/about.html

The effect is that you get a really interesting portrayal of the aging process, from birth to old age.  At one point I read that the models used were all from the same family, but I haven’t been able to find that tonight, so I can’t be certain about that.  You don’t see any ethnic diversity though, so the emphasis remains on the aging process rather than individual differences.

I encourage you to check out both series in their entirety at the link provided above.

So yeah, bumming through Google Images on a lazy Sunday is just stumbling me in to all sorts of fun things.  Jason Levesque has made anatomical nesting dolls!  Neat!

Ooh, take a look at this! Italian illustrator/designer,  Andrea Manzati, makes a little anatomy in plasticine.  Fun!

Oh, how beautiful is this?!

Brian Dettmer, out of Atlanta Georgia is making quite a name for himself.  Eugene of My Modern Met calls him the book surgeon, in his piece here…
http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/the-book-surgeon-15-pieces

That’s because he is literally dissecting these books “with knives, tweezers, and surgical tools.”  And the results are awesome!

He doesn’t always choose to use medial books, but you have to admit that it really does go well with the whole surgical/dissection theme.  I noticed on his website, a skeleton made of old cassette tapes as well.  Those of you who read this blog often know how I love skeletons, and particularly skulls so you have to know how much I love that someone did this.

The artist statement on his website speaks of how we are loosing our physical forms of information as digital technology takes over.  I highly advise stopping over there and taking a look at more of his work.  It is beautiful.  And Brian is clearly an artist who has taken the time to master his craft.  What a fun find.