Women in Bio Panel – “The Intersection of Art and Science” – Part 2

Last month I wrote a post about an event I organized with Women in Bio called “The Intersection of Art and Science”.  There I moderated a panel of female artists who use scientific concepts as inspiration for their artwork.  On top of organizing a panel, we also decided to do something different and actually set up a small exhibit of the panelists’ art pieces.  We set up several easels on a table in a conference room and WHALA!  It was a huge hit!

The evening opened up with the director of SciArt Center setting the backdrop of how the fields of art and science used to be complementary during the period of Renaissance.  Each one was necessary to communicate the other.  One of the best examples is the depiction of human anatomy.  By using artistic mediums such as painting and sculpture, artists allowed the general public to visualize and grasp scientific concepts.

Unfortunately, with time the two fields diverged, became elitist and mutually exclusive.   This phenomenon can in part be attributed to technological advances such as photography, which makes artistic depiction of reality obsolete.  The modern world also requires ultra-specialization, where doctors may focus on a particular sub-type of disease and artists may be very selective about their topics of exploration.  However, over the last several years, there has been an effort to reunite these two seemingly opposite disciplines, as they can mutually benefit from aspects that they can offer each other.

This event served as another step of raising such awareness.  A HUGE THANK YOU to New York Women in Bio!

Here are a few pictures from the event.  Over the next several posts I will show the close ups of my pieces and the stories behind them.  If you are interested in any of the pieces, please contact me at yzorina@gmail.com.