background ideas

It's 50 years since the structure of DNA was first identified.
How do we use this knowledge to view living systems today?

Often scientific thought is mechanistic and reductive and DNA is seen merely as a code.

We hear it likened to a computer code, a code that can be 'broken', 'edited', 'cut and pasted'.

The living wildflower weed model offers an alternative metaphor.

             'a weed is a plant whose virtues
                 have not yet been discovered' 
                                                          Emerson

materials: spruce twigs, wild weed flowers, copper wire

artwork: digital print, limited edition of 20, 18cm x1.5m, laminated on board, matt coated finish
Llimited edition of 20 only - edition sold.

Collections: held in Trinity College Dublin collection, Zoology Department, the Irish Royal College of Surgeons collection and in private collections

This piece was:

• featured in Earth Explorer exhibition, The Ark, Temple Bar, Dublin, 21 Jun-15 Aug, 2009
• pictured in Real People talk about science, Joule New Zealand, Sunday Star Times, Jan 29, 2006, p5
• pictured in  the Irish Times in article 'An artist's eye in the Laboratory' by Cormac Sheridan,  click here
• selected for curated international art-science show 'Tomorrow', in the New York Hall of Science, Sept -Dec 20004
• on the cover of new Canadian EcoHealth magazine in Sept 04, click here
• selected for the Eigse Open 2004 exhibition, June 04
• Read online 04 review article at Genome News Network, click here
• Exhibited at DNA: art & science - the double helix at the Contemporary Art Museum Tampa, Florida, Jan 04.