Lupa

Lara Cordeiro Ramos, Hobart City High School

In collaboration with Danielle Zimmermann Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies, UTAS

Artist’s Statement

My artwork is inspired by Del’s research on marine sediment. What she’s researching are these tiny creatures in the sand that go by unnoticed and the historical changes that have happened since the last time they were studied. These creatures – in the sediment – are hard to see with the naked eye, and while most people know there are plenty of shells, rocks, and specimens in the sand, they don’t know much about what they are. Their size being the main reason why that is, as the smaller creatures aren’t easy to identify at all unless you’re looking at them very closely with a microscope, which is what we did in our visit to Del’s laboratory and what my artwork represents.

What stuck with me the most about Del’s work is that these creatures go by unnoticed but they’re such an interesting study. They are hardly remembered even though there are so many of them, so I wanted to show how metaphorically big they are. My work is an acrylic painting of what I saw through the microscope at Del’s lab. I want my audience to have a similar experience, so I sort of hid the painting inside a cylinder with a lens at the top to mimic the effect of looking through a microscope. Depending on the angle you look at it from, different bits of the painting come in to focus, just like how a microscope works in real life.

One thing that was also intentional was the fact that my work is hidden behind that cylinder until you look at it up close through the lens. This is just like what the actual creature in the sediment are like: hidden in plain sight (the sand), only showing when you look at it from up close.

My experience of being part of CoLab this year has not only taught me things about art and science that I didn’t know before, but I think it was a great experience for working with people and with things that aren’t what you usually get up to. Nothing before was stopping me from making an artwork that conveys elements of marine biology but gaining inspiration from what the scientist is not only studying but is also passionate about and getting to make something with my passion out of their passion is something I find beautiful about the human experience.

Using methods I wouldn’t have thought of before (such as the lens or the round canvas) while simultaneously working
on a time budget was a nice challenge to my usual routine and I’m just hoping I can be part of more creative projects like this in the future. I hope other people can be inspired to get out of their shells (pun unintended) and try something new as well.