October 28, 2011

Tree of Life by Michele Banks

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This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American

If you follow the #scienceart hashtag on Twitter and G+, you'll know that Michele Banks aka @artologica is one of the most active and vocal artists in this new movement. Symbiartic will have an interview and more in-depth talk with Banks in coming days, but in the meantime I could not wait to share this collage.

I like to encourage people to have a slow appreciation for visual images: we often rush past them online as novelties or utilitarian signposts.

Instead, take a few minutes, and just look at this.

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It's a collage made from watercolour paintings, titled Tree of Life.

Banks says:
Artists and scientists have often used the image of a tree as a metaphor for the strength, fragility and interconnectedness of all life forms. My tree is not in any strict (or even loose) evolutionary or phylogenomic order - it simply celebrates the beauty and diversity of biology.
Among the "leaves" are images of amoebas, viruses, bacteria, plant cells, brain cells, skin cells, egg cells and blood vessels. (It also includes a few that may owe more to Dr. Seuss than to Darwin).

For a full description, read more about it on Artologica's Etsy page, and watch Symbiartic for an interview with Michele Banks.

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