My chemistry on copper artwork is both inspired by chemistry and employs chemical reactions in its creation.  Conceptualizing the atomic scale interactions underlying chemical reactions requires the mind to imagine that which it cannot see. Manipulating raw materials to yield new and useful chemical matter requires chemists to hold multiple abstract concepts simultaneously and rearrange them to create something new. My art is inspired by these internal abstractions of physical, unseeable, matter and the chemists who use them to shape our world through their deft manipulation of its most elemental forms.

Density

Interior Transport

Dispersion

Ions

Energy

The first five images seen here, Density, Interior Transport, Dispersion, Ions, and Energy, share an abstract interpretation of molecular dynamics.  Vibrating, spinning, or moving from place to place, chemistry is concerned with how atoms interact.  The title given each artwork is only my suggestion and the viewer is free to interpret on their own.

Nucleosynthesis

Sky

Prairie Fire

Sea Floor

Vertebrae

Bioscaffold Triptych in situ

The next six images Nucleosynthesis, Sky, Prairie Fire, Sea Floor, Vertebrae, and Bioscaffold Triptych highlights how light alters the viewer’s perception of my work. In these, light hits the copper panel and cascades into a burst of fiery color. Mood and thought change as light and color shift rhapsodically. When the light dims or strikes at certain angles the color becomes saturated, majestic, and even reverential. Shifting light on the copper surface and viewer movement are the kinesthetic forces altering perception, allowing us to discover new and interesting things each time we view this artwork.

Signal to Noise

Violet Crystals

Contaminated

Contaminated (detail)

Up to this point the copper panels viewed in this article have been sealed to prevent further chemical reactions and continuing patination. Public art agencies and other patrons of my art want assurances that these copper panels will not change with time, and I have complied with their wishes.

However, Signal to Noise, Violet Crystals, and Contaminated are some examples of art I have not sealed, and they continue to change with time providing rich textures on the metal’s surface. In addition to vibrant colors, my process informed by two decades of experimentation and optimization, generates images of intense contrasts that range from coarse and grainy to shiny and gossamer.

The following quote by the late Valerie Monroe Shakespeare, owner of the (now defunct) Fulcrum Gallery, (located for many years on Broome St. in NYC), expresses a philosophy that sometimes informs my unsealed artwork.

“If time is actually part of the artist’s palette, then the qualities of the materials being used in the art become part of the art in a concrete physical way. The art is taken out of stasis & becomes a living object.

Time is the enemy of art attempting to capture an impression or concept for future appreciation, without actually considering the future of the substance on which the art is carried. The survival of a work of art that does not incorporate time, is a losing battle against the “ravages of time.” Sometimes stasis is prolonged by sealed isolation or re-creation by other hands. Future generations are relegated to peering through glass at shadows of once great art or viewing “masterpieces” recreated by the hands of nameless restorers. This art becomes nothing but legend. The future becomes a major part of the art when the material of which it is made is interfaced with the idea of the art. Instead of fighting the elements of nature, in a doomed battle to remain static, the art is allowed to respond, creating a dialogue with time & becoming enriched by the effects of time.”

Chemistry is sometimes the subject of my work, often its inspiration, and always the method or means of its creation.

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https://safren.com/

All images copyright and courtesy of Cheryl Safren

Art, Creativity, Science