1. “Impermafrost’ by Gail Priday, is a beautiful piece of work that I found particularly visually appealing. I liked the color choices and the circular parameter that it was created in. Gail’s description talks about what permafrost is and how the melting of permafrost can lead to accelerated climate change conducted by microbes. After reading the artist statement I really appreciated the art because I recognized how the rising greenhouse gases were illustrated. I think that the microbes were illustrated in an appealing way as well. For these reasons, I think this work of art successfully captured the concepts it set out to portray.
2. “Veiled Unveiled’ by Mariah Henderson & Eric Henderson is an interesting piece that describes the laboratory issue that comes about when a microbe cannot clearly be seen even when it is under a microscope. This has to do with the transparent nature of many microbes. Scientists’ remedy is to use a variety of stains that are available in the lab. This art piece illustrated this concept by illustrating what microbes look like before and after a stain. I thought this was an interesting piece of work and explained the concept in a fun way.
3.’Inoculation The 1%’ by Mariah Henderson & Eric Henderson describes a concept we discussed in class. About only 1% of bacteria can be cultured in a petri dish in a laboratory setting. Obviously this limits the extent of microbiology that can be conducted by physical methods like plate streaking. This art piece plays into that idea by creating illustration of the “1%’ that can actually be cultured- (the bacteria the lab had actually grown on petri dishes) Putting the number it in that context makes it a bit unbelievable just how small our scope of microbes is without molecular biology techniques.
4. If I created artwork for this show I would consider capturing the concept of microbial ubiquity and diversity. Since microbes are so different and can be found in so many opposing places and exist with different lifestyles. I think the variety of environments could provide some interesting work. I would like to create a visual representation of some of these environments.