Mitosis: a Unique Collection of Glass Vessels

For a new museum dedicated to the work of geneticist, Gregor Mendel in Brno, Czech Republic I was invited to develop a collection of works to be exhibited alongside archival material relating to Mendel’s work. The exhibition, Gregor Mendel – The Genius of Genetics, celebrated the pioneering work of Mendel within the field of genetics through a collection of objects and artefacts relating to his life and work.

Mitosis is a collection of five unique glass sculptures created for the exhibition, that explore the interface between art and science. The glass forms were derived from studying plant cells in the process of dividing and splitting. The fluidity of the hot blown glass process was used as a metaphor for the division of plant cells, the glass progressively stretched in its molten state until new shapes emerged. The globule-like forms were subsequently filled with pollen, dried flowers and peas, (the subject of Mendel’s experiments), to create an artistic expression of a crucial moment of creation, frozen in time and sealed within the fluidity of the super-cooled glass. The filled vessels became both representative of scientific process and artistic creation and alluded to the mysterious functional ambiguity of scientific glass vessels. In so doing, their proximity to the historic artefacts sought to foster new approaches to understanding objects on public display.

Research Interests

Representation of nature within contemporary culture. Arts and craft movement, modernism, post modernism. Ceramic Art & Design. Electron microscopy, ceramics, NESTA, Kew Gardens, Pollen, Seeds

Current Research

My practice inhabits a territory where Design, Fine Art and Applied Art overlap and explores the interrelationship between the Arts and Sciences, in particular the natural world, for which I was recently awarded a three year fellowship from NESTA to work with microscopic plant material in the herbarium at Kew. This has resulted in a diverse range of projects: installations, public art and landscaping commissions, works in ceramic, glass and textiles, and digital photography. I recently published two major books in collaboration with botanical scientists at Kew, Pollen The Hidden Sexuality of Flowers and Seeds, Time Capsules of Life, which in which original micrographs were digitally remastered in colour to reveal mesmeric structures that lie somewhere between science and symbolism. Current projects include Hortus in Vitro,an architectural glass commission for the Botanic Garden in Oxford University, a design collaboration with Royal Crown Derby China and a third book in collaboration with Kew on Fruit. In 2006 I was elected as a Fellow of the Linnaean Society for my work in the field of visualising plant science. Additionally I am a board member of the Atoms to Art research network in Ceramic & Glass, and also a member of AIR the Artists Advisory Group for a-n magazine.