x-ray head, applique                    
        Science
Images 		                     
        Mask of Unmasking, reverse applique, 14 X 20 inches, 1982. The white is skull bone, the green is infrared (heat) radiation. The more we peel back the layers, the stranger we appear.                    
Kirlian image, shibori PET scan, watercolor
A book, The New Landscape by Gyorgy Kepes in 1956, was the biggest influence in all Myrrh's art training. In it, Kepes explored both diagrams and maps of what we know, and what we can discover by science photography and instrumentation.

In the following years, frenzied growth has taken place in the science imaging field. False coloring has often been used to highlight features of scientific interest. The appearance this gives images has influenced artists like Myrrh.		  
The Kirlian Effect, shibori (sewn tie-dye), 18 X 32 inches, 1980
A Russian couple named Kirlian discovered that photographic images of living materials could be made by laying them on a charged metal plate in a dark room.
Myrrh liked the way these looked, and found a good analog in the shibori technique. It took her six months to sew the design, which she dyed. Then, she removed the stitches.		            
      Thinking of you, my P.E.T., watercolor, 14 X 22 inches, 1986. PET is "positive emission tomography," which registers which brain areas are active during a specific mental task. Myrrh fantasized a brain lit up with love.  
   
  moon crater, mixed media    
               
Moon Crater, above, a crumpled paper painting with computer variations, 24 X 60 inches, 1987
Myrrh crumpled paper around bowls, then spray painted it while in relief. This was flattened, digitized, and each shade of grey assigned new colors to make the versions on either side.
Science photos are assigned false colors the same way to bring out unexpected detail.		                    
black hole, print  
Black Hole, relief print, 11 X 15 inches, 1972
After Myrrh carved this block, her husband, a physicist, told her that particles rushing toward a black hole's intense gravitational field would begin to glow, obscuring the "blackness."
At the time this was made, black holes hadn't been observed in nature. Now, careful observations show they are common, and the galaxies with strangely-shaped glowing halos and geyser shapes are believed to have black-hole centers.		  
      <To more art about science     What else is at the Edge of Not Being Seen?                    NEXT>       
                       
HOME