Chris Booth is a sculptor who works closely with the land, earth forms, and indigenous peoples of the region(s) where he creates his monumental sculptural art works. His way of working emphasizes communication and exchange between indigenous and colonial cultures and the creation of meaningful environmental art works. In this interview with art and ecology author, John K. Grande, he discusses his ideas and work.
Lucinda Burgess’s background in painting, landscape design and oriental philosophy has led to a fascination with the raw elemental qualities of materials and inform a sculptural practice that accentuates the reality of constant change, undermining the idea of a fixed thing, object, entity or identity.
During a residency at the University of Birmingham working with award winning particle physicist Professor Kostas Nikolopoulos in 2017 artist Ian Andrews made transformational changes to his practice creating the project ‘The Sketchbook and the Collider which seeks to establish equivalents between the interaction of fundamental particles and the language of drawing. He has since delivered 16 exhibition/events and 40 workshops, including a solo exhibition at the Forum Exposition Bonlieu, Annecy, France in October 2022, following which Ian was invited to talk at the International Particle Physics Outreach Group 25th annual conference at CERN in Geneva.
NILS-UDO is a German artist from Bavaria who has been creating environmental art since the 1960s when he moved away from painting and the studio in 1972 and began to work with, and in, nature. He began as a painter on traditional surfaces, in Paris, but moved to his home country in Bavaria and started to plant creations, putting them in Nature’s hands to develop, and eventually disappear. As his work became more ephemeral, he introduced photography as part of his art to document and share it. In this interview with art and ecology author, John K. Grande, he discusses his ideas and work.
Tessa Campbell Fraser is a British painter and sculptor based in Oxfordshire UK. Born in Edinburgh, she studied at Chelsea School of Art and afterwards established herself as one of the country’s leading animal artists. Her exhibition, ‘Whales- a Deeper Dialogue’ seeks to unravel the interspecies communication between man and animal that is currently a hot topic in scientific research.
Elaine Whittaker is a Canadian visual artist working at the intersection of art, science, medicine, and ecology. Biology is the basis for her installations, sculptures, paintings, drawings, and digital images. These works incorporate traditional and unconventional materials: paint, pigment, wax, mosquitoes, salt crystals, human cells, textiles, repurposed fibres, and live microorganisms. ‘Murky Bodies’ is a series of four installations speculating on the entangled ways in which humans, plants, animals and microorganisms emerge and co-exist in a world confronting a warming climate, rising seas, intensified water cycles and extreme storms.
Pascale Pollier’s work attempts to capture the point where art and science meld. An alchemist at heart, her work begins with observation and experimentation, and is steeped in solid scientific research and findings.
Her inspiration is drawn from observing the internal and external human body in all its diversity, life and nature in all its beauty, strength, fragility, disease, mortality, immortality and death. New technologies and philosophies, quantum physics, nanotechnology, animatronics are amongst her interest and are important in her work.
Chantal Pollier is a visual artist who prefers to work with stone. (and in wax, glass, drawings, and photography) All her work holds references to temporality and transience. Many are rooted in science, with a particular interest in geology, biology, anatomy and morphology. The way in which collaborating artists and scientists can enter each other’s territory, and the extent to which they can thereby add new dimensions to both their own work and that of their partners, leads to refreshing perspectives.
Julian Voss-Andreae, a German sculptor based in Portland (Oregon, USA) is widely known for his striking large-scale public and private commissions often blending figurative sculpture with scientific insights into the nature of reality. His sculptures are frequently shown at international art fairs and galleries and can be found in major collections all over the world. Voss-Andreae’s work has been featured in print and broadcast media worldwide and videos of his sculpture have gone viral with tens of millions of views. His expertise in diverse fields of science and a deep passion for the mysteries of the world have been a continual source of inspiration for his work.
The MA Art and Science at University of Arts, London is a pioneering course that explores the creative relationships at the intersection of art and science in their broadest forms, examined through an evolving interdisciplinary practice. The MA Art and Science Post-Graduate final show took place on 25th-30th June 2024. Subjects explored include, among other things, biodiversity, ecology and environments; feminism, body transformation and cyberpunk art; cosmologies; biosonification; explorations of identity and extensions of self; interspecies communication; fashion and installation art.