The Pat Guthrie Special Exhibitions Teaching Gallery is a space for cultivating interdisciplinary connections between artwork and courses taught at the University of Wyoming (UW).  Work in the Teaching Gallery typically features art from UW Art Museum’s (UWAM) permanent collection; however, the Fall 2023 exhibition is diverging from the usual program. UWAM is excited to be collaborating with the Microbestiary, a grant-funded art and science outreach project at UW that engages the public in microbiology through art, to host artwork created during the inaugural Microbestiary Artist Residency (MAR). The Pat Guthrie Special Exhibitions Teaching Gallery: Fall 2023 Edition at the University of Wyoming Art Museum (UWAM) will be a group show featuring artwork by Tristan Duke, Reza Safavi, Dr. Andi Wolfe, and the Optics Division of the Metabolic Studio(Lauren Bon, Tristan Duke, and Richard Nielsen). 

Artists selected for the MAR have an artmaking practice that thrives at the intersections of art and science. MAR artists visited UW twice during the Spring 2023 semester to conduct public talks, workshops, and to meet with interested faculty and students. The artwork in the Teaching Gallery is a collective exploration of the in/visible forces and organisms that shape the world we know.  Microbes live around us and within us—our interactions with them are a matter of life and death. Yet, regarding issues such as biodiversity, public awareness centers very heavily on species that are visible to the naked eye. Through these artistic responses to the field of microbiological research, we are highlighting the charismatic world that these creatures inhabit.  

The exhibition borrows its title from an iconic book of the same name. Micrographia, by Robert Hooke, was first published in 1665. It touched upon the many various interests of its author, including distant planets, the origin of fossils, the wave theory of light, and primarily focused on the visualizations of the microscopic–plant cell walls, insects, and others. This artistic approach to transdisciplinary science encapsulates the motivation of this exhibition. How does science benefit from art? How does art benefit from science?  

The Microbestiary is organized by Project Coordinator Erin Bentley, that works to engage the public in microbiology through art. Bentley and Raechel Cook, Curator of Academic Engagement at UWAM, worked collaboratively throughout the Spring 2023 semester to coordinate sci-art programming and promote the residency.  

 

Exhibition on view in Laramie, Wyoming at the University of Wyoming Art Museum from August 26 – December 16, 2023. Admission is free. Click here for more information about visiting. 

 

Opening reception: August 26, 2023 | 3-5 PM

Gallery Talk begins at 3:30 PM at the UW Art Museum

Artist Bios 

  Tristan Duke is a Los Angeles-based artist with a special interest in light, optics, illusion, and visual perception. Using innovative approaches to materials, craft and technology, Duke explores visual ways of knowing –building his own cameras, optical devices, and interactive installations to create radical new perspectives. His highly interdisciplinary approach has led to collaborations with a wide range of artists, scientists, and community members.  He is co-founder of the Optics Division, a collective devoted to recontextualizing photography as a land-based medium and social practice. Learn more at tristanduke.com 

 

The Optics Division of the Metabolic Studio, formed in 2010 by artists Lauren Bon, Tristan Duke, and Richard Nielsen formed the Optics Division of the Metabolic Studio, is devoted to recontextualizing photography as a land-based medium and a social practice. The Optics Division has explored the photochemical agency of the natural landscape: mining the material resources to make photographic film such as silver, halogen salts, water, and gelatin, seeking a photography that is literally of the landscape.   

Learn more at metabolicstudio.org/optics-division 

 

Reza Safavi examines how technology shapes experience. He uses video, code, sound, drawing, performance, sculpture, analog, and digital devices as well as living elements to create interactive experiences that highlight the interfaces between communities, technology, consciousness, and the environment. Safavi has been a member of several artists’ groups, in addition to his individual practice and his artwork has been exhibited nationally and internationally. Safavi is an Associate Professor in the Department of Fine Arts at Washington State University in Pullman, WA. Learn more at hi-reza.com. 

 

Dr. Andi Wolfe is a botanist and artist who has spent much of her life seeing the world through a lens–either a hand lens, the ocular of a microscope, or a camera lens. Her career as a plant evolutionary biologist led her into an exploration of art through woodturning, carving, and photography. Her artwork focuses on the use of surface enhancements that employ botanical motifs and textural patterns based on the cellular structures of plants. Dr. Wolfe’s recent work includes experimentation with glass and mixed media sculptures. Learn more at andiwolfe.com.