Past NEWS

2010

December 2010 - New work on the blog

I've been adding lots of new images and photographs to the blog, including a picture of the studio and all works on the canvas right now.

Hop over for sketches, photographs of Greece and a new idea for a book! Please let me know your thoughts :)

November 2010- New Work and a Show in New York!

I now have a fantastic studio in Bushwick, Brooklyn. More space and light than I've ever had. Although maybe less time than I might have had.

Lots of work in progress! New "Girls and Apples" paintings - check out images on the blog!

Also, first show in New York! I participated in the lovely 6x6 show by the wonderful print gallery Charmingwall in West Chelsea.

June 29 - Spiral of Life Series Available for Purchase

Now you can own a Spiral of Life! Either click the links below to purchase on-line or contact me.

Coming soon: Spiral of Life Murals

Join the ranks of the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquariums, the National Aviary in Pittsburgh and more, by installing a wall-sized Spiral of Life mural in your museum/school/home. COMING SOON.

June 26 - New Wallpaper: Art on your computer

Download the "Tui Bird" wallpaper >>

This wallpaper is 2000 x 1500px and should fit any smaller screen.

The "Tui Bird" is a print from the Spiral of Life project. The Spiral was a two-year long project, a true science and art collaboration. We surveyed evolution literature and imagery to propose a new image for evolution that captured the cutting edge of the field. The Spiral project was included in an NIH study by Teresa E. MacDonald that led to the paper Communicating Phylogeny: Evolutionary tree diagrams in museums (University of Kansas Natural History Museum. Paper presented at the 2010 annual meeting of the National Association for Research in Science Teaching. Philadelphia, PA).

See all Spiral-related prints >>

May 1 - Free Wallpaper: Art on your computer

Why should walls and physical spaces have all the fun?

Click the image to the right and download this detail of Cell Adhesion (2008) to use as a wallpaper on your computer!

April 11 - Work in University of Lisbon Center for Image in Science and Art On-line Archive

The University of Lisbon (UL) has published the site University of Lisbon Center for Image in Science and Art, that is part of the project Image in Science and Art, led by the Center for Philosophy of Sciences of UL, part of College of Science of UL (Faculdade de Ciencias da UL) and funded by the Foundation of Science and Technology (in Portugal).

This site is an archive of images produced for art and science that will be officially presented in the exhibit "Crossings. Image in Science and Art" at the Gulbenkian Museum from the 3 of February to 13 of March in 2011.

The collection is already truly spectacular and I highly recommend visiting! I'm honored that some some of my work has been added to the archive, you can find it by going to the site (http://lisboncisa.fc.ul.pt) clicking the links:

- Images - Images in Science - Idealities - Diagrams: includes images of the Spiral of Life

- Images - At the Borders of Science and Art - SciArt: includes images of some paintings

April 11 - New paintings on-line

Two new pieces have been posted:

Cell Adhesion
This painting has a funny story. I met Matt Woodlin as an undergraduate student at CMU, at a conference about Biology visualization. His poster was about how skin cells move around. I was really struck by the beauty of the pictures – but most of it came from the fact that there had been a problem with staining the cells. Biologists use staining to differentiate different parts of the cell, like the membrane, the nucleus, or a particular protein. The cells were colored throughout and they were gorgeous. While for his studies these images may have not been useful, for me, they are very powerful. Talk about individual intention, individual agency at the cellular level!

Plancton
Science is showing us all kinds of new things about us, our bodies and the world. Plancton is a really poignant example of this enlarged view for me. Microscopes revealed to us the richness and complexity of life in the ocean water. Satellites showed us phenomena at a new scale, like the fields of plankton we can see from orbit. But the challenge remains to translate this knowledge into everyday understanding, or at the human scale, at the everyday scale, we will continue to not see this, we'll see only water. The three panels of this painting capture these three levels.

April 10 - Talk at PAPS, Portuguese American Postgraduate Society meeting

Thank you to the PAPS 2010 organizing committee for putting together such a great meeting this past weekend, and bringing me in to talk about my work. We had an exciting panel with curator Miguel Amado, about different kinds of intersection of science and art, and their role in research, education and in the art world.

March 31 - Art cast in "Love And Other Drugs"

Art hitting the Hollywood screen!

Coming out in 2010 is the major production "Love & Other Drugs" with Jake Gyllenhall and Anne Hathaway. Hathaway plays a woman with Parkinson's disease, who used to be an artist. My works were cast as Ms. Hathaway's work!

Also, check out the comedy "She's Out of My League" out now and look for the paintings at SUGAR Boutique!

Feb 16 - Residency at Children's Museum of Pittsburgh and new Spiral

In January, I was in residency at the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh creating the last installment of the Spiral of Life series the" Story of Evolution," a 3-D sculpture that doubles as a storytelling stage.

Click to see more >>

Feb 6 - "Pure Rubbish" is back on-line

I started a new project with writer Danielle Commisso called "Pure Rubish", a collection of non-sensical but sensible poetry and art. Please check it out for a new kind of something. From the blog:

"Pure Rubbish is a collaboration between writer Danielle Commisso and artist Joana Ricou. Please enjoy with crumpets and scones, large hats, and tiny cups of tea.

Or, perhaps you might prefer to take a vested academic interest, which rest assured, is at least worthy of a good psycho-analytical spanking.

Abandon your sense, but not your senses."

2009

Dec 10 - "The Tree, the Spiral and the Web" Seminar

The project "Image in Science and Art" is hosting its 11th Seminar "Approaches to the Concept of Image," with the theme Visualizing Evolution. This event will be on December 10th at the Faculdade de Ciencias da Universidade de Lisboa, and will have Professor Agostinho Rosa (IST, LaSEEB) who will speak image within evolutionary studies and [me] (biologist and artist, Duquesne University) who will speak of visualizing evolution to promote awareness.

10am - Image in the study of evolving systems (Agostinho Rosa)
11am - The Tree, the Spiral and the Web (Joana Ricou)

Nov 09 - Darwin2009: New works "Science and Art in Museums and Schools" and new prints

A new work section has been added to the website called "Science and Art in Museums and Schools" find museum exhibits and public art.

New prints have been added as well!

Oct 09 - Darwin2009: Spiral of Life Mural Series

As Artistic Director for the project Regenerative Medicine Partnership in Education, I've been very busy with our latest project - Darwin 2009!

The Spiral of Life mural series proposes a new symbol for evolution, a spiral, that emphasizes the common origin and equality of all livings things.

The mural series is:

Spiral of Life I: From Darwin to Today
Installed at the Carnegie Science Center Carnegie Science Center.
Located on the 4th floor, next to "Ask Darwin"

Spiral of Life II: Co-Evolution of Plants and Animals
Installed at Phipps Conservatory, Pittsburgh PA (March-August 2009)

Spiral of Life III: Animal Evolution
Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquariums (July 2009)
Located in the Kid's Kingdom, Worlds of Discovery building

Spiral of Life IV: DNA and Evolution
Developed for DNA Day 2009
Exhibited at all Darwin2009 partner institutions

Spiral of Life V: Bird Evolution
To be installed at the National Aviary, Pittsburgh PA (September 2009)

Spiral of Life VI: Life Stories
To be installed at the Children's Museum (October 2009)

See more information and pictures >>

Apr 09 - Synch Project + CMU press coverage of "Art That Learns" Class

See the new project Synch >>

Inspired by the natural occuring synchronicity, our electrical field of glowing lights turns on nice patterns as each one tries to synch with its neighbors. Installed in a dark corridor, and above visitors' heads.




See footage of the "Art That Learns" show at Children's Museum from Carnegie Mellon University press.

Mar 09 - Upcoming Show "Art That Learns"

Upcoming show:
"Art That Learns"
Pittsburgh Children's Museum
Opens April 25th

This show is the final showcase of the projects from the class "Art That Learns", an experimental project that combines computer scientists and artists to explore work that not only reacts or interacts with the viewer, but that can learn from experience, and sift through enormous amounts of information.

The class is led by Osman Khan and Carlos Guestrin, from Carnegie Mellon University. See the class blog.

Mar 09 - Friendly Butterflies

First experimentation with an installation that can learn from its experience. The piece "Friendly Butterflies" was installed at the Children's Museum.


In this installation, visitors were greeted by a flock of butterflies that are attracted to the cast shadows. The twist in the piece? Each butterfly learned by itself how best to interact with visitors to spend as much time as possible near them!


This piece was developed with Jesse Chorng and Polo Chau, in the class Art that Learns, led by Carlos Guestrin and Osman Khan.

Feb 09 - New piece at SUGAR Boutique

New piece installed at SUGAR boutique! If you're in the neighborhood, drop by and check out the new Spring collections.

2008

New blog "Pure Rubbish"

I started a new project with writer Danielle Commisso called "Pure Rubish", a collection of non-sensical but sensible poetry and art. Please check it out for a new kind of something. From the blog:

"Pure Rubbish is a collaboration between writer Danielle Commisso and artist Joana Ricou. Please enjoy with crumpets and scones, large hats, and tiny cups of tea.

Or, perhaps you might prefer to take a vested academic interest, which rest assured, is at least worthy of a good psycho-analytical spanking.

Abandon your sense, but not your senses."

January 2008 : NY and New Work

Fall'07 was spent in New York where I was fortunate to work with Kathleen Cullen at Kathleen Cullen Fine Arts. I'd like to invite to drop by if you're in NY - you will find KCFA on 26th St and 10th Ave. The address is 508 West 26th St, Suite 5A, in Chelsea. In the few months of my participation we put together some great shows and I had the opportunity of meeting and seeing a ton of art and art people. I hope to return in the end of Winter for the art fairs.

I am currently back in Pittsburgh with many plans for art making (and science educating)!


A new season of shows approaches, and more details will be posted soon. In the meantime, I continue intrigued as ever with line drawings and simple compositions with lines, bodies and symbols. For a peek at my current direction, please visit my blog Art in Progress at http://jricouart.blogspot.com

Sep 21, 2007- Update

I will be in NY for the next three months (until November), where I am working at a gallery in Chelsea, very exciting and interesting! Expect new shows and works only in 2008!..

July 12, 2007- Added new piece and new blog posting

A new piece is under works, in the continuation of the female art project, I am combining the line drawings and the oil painting. I made a post about this work, go here for this.

I also added a 2006 piece entitled "Spines," this piece was inspired by the notion that the spinal cord is about the width of our thumb and some of our cells run almost the full height of our body. This panel is actually part of a three-panel but the side panels are not included.

July - August, 2007 - "Reflections..." at 707 Penn Ave

"AAP is an official partner for the Year of the Glass, high-profile pronotional effort that will be focusing attention on the arts and cultural activities in the Pittsburgh region for 2007. In July, AAP will be having a non-juried exhibition for members only, titled "Reflections." "Reflections" will be held at the Gallery 707, a project of the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust." - From AAP web site.

The gallery's hours:
Tue - Thur 11 am - 6 pm
Fri and Sat 11 am - 8pm
Sun and Mon: Closed

June 15th - SUGAR boutique acquired the "Apple Tree" frame

SUGAR boutique from Butler St, that participated in Artwalk has acquired the frame I created for the fashion show! It now adornes one of the store's windows, paired with Susan Englert's creation! See the SUGAR web site here.

June 6th - Acceptance into Associated Artists of Pittsburgh

I'm pleased to announce I was accepted into the Associated Artists of Pittsburgh!

"The Associated Artists of Pittsburgh is the largest group of visual artists in the Pittsburgh region. Our almost 500 members represent creative talent in all artistic media – a term than continues to change rapidly in this information age.

The purpose of the association, which was founded in 1910, is to foster a love of the fine arts and to advance art in the region. The group is governed by a volunteer board of directors, each of whom is either an artist or community member, elected for a term of three years. Officers serve for one year. A part-time administrator coordinates business activities." - from the AAP's web site

See AAP's web site here >>

June 9th - Added slideshow of Angles

Added a slide show of some of the pieces from "Angles", see Past Shows >>

June 4th - First photos from Artwalk

The event was a huge success! We had a great turn-out and the work on display received many compliments.

Thank you to Anne Savage, Julia Huswitt and Susan Engert for tirelessly putting this event together, and bringing artists, designers and performers together in such a neat way.

The piece to the left "Apple Tree" was a natural succession of my recent work with the Eve and Pandora themes. Instead of focusing on creating postures and encounters of the body with the apple, I focused on creating a setting with apples, alluding also more directly, albeit in a very transformed way, to the idea of the tree.

The creative constraint in this project was to create a "frame" only of two sheets of corrugated white plastic, that would have an opening of about 2ft by 4ft in the middle, through which the models could view artwork and be viewed by the audience. The tree shape was conceptualized as a 3D drawing, in which instead line defining shape as in 2D, the shapes were cut out and their volume created the line mark. The different models interacted with the tree and created their own encounters. Depicted is a moment of me, modelling LucidWare (Emilee Kohan and Danielle Comisso). See the show! >>

May 13th, 2007- New Works!

I added most of the work from the most recent shows. "Eve" on the left is from the new series of "Girl + Apple." This series was shown at ModernFormations this March in the show Angles!

New additions, the new pieces from "Connect":

And a new series of drawings "Girl + Peacock feathers":

March 7th, 2007- Prints for Sale

Two pieces have been made available as prints!

PRINTS $30
The piece to the left ("Girl painting her toenails") is now available as a print! This piece is not available for sale, and has been published through Encyclopedia Destructica (see their site). This is a signed, limited edition of 50 copies.

"Girl painting her fingernails"
Ink on UltraSmooth FineArt paper
9.5 in x 8 in
$30 (does not include shipping)

These prints are made with archival-grade inks and on UltraSmooth Fine Art paper, which is my favorite kind of print paper (very heavy and pleasant to the touch).

"Mouse Hippocampus (Cover image)" Print $50
This image (without the type of the magazine) has also been made into a print! This will be a signed, limited edition of 75 copies.

"Mouse hippocampus" print is:
11 in x 13 in
Ink on photo glossy paper (a heavy, softly glossy paper)

Please e-mail for purchase at jiricou@gmail.com, thank you!

April 16, 2007 - PHOTOS from "CONNECT" with Allison Hoge @ Breathe Yoga Studio

CONNECT is at:
Breathe Yoga Studio
1113 East Carson Street
3rd Floor

Auxiliary show at:
moxieDaDA
April 7 - 28
1416 Arch Street, Northside

I am really excited to participate in this show to work with moxieDaDA again and also because it is a two-person with Allison Hoge (www.allisonhoge.com), who is an amazing artist from Pittsburgh. I'm really interested in seeing how our work will function in the same room, as we both love strong colors, abstract fields and the awesome range of oil textures. I will be showing a new series of bioart pieces, that explore a varietly of themes about the self-replicating patterns found in sub-organismical nature. Intrigued? Come see the show..

From the moxieDaDA's press release: Having been involved with CONNECT in the past, both artists had shown great ability to captivate the viewer and initiate greater investigation of their work.

This is a two part exhibit, with artwork relating to the 2nd and 5th chackras, shown at Breathe Studio with auxiliary works by both artists at moxieDaDA. For more information, please see also the web site for the organizing gallery moxieDaDA (www.moxiedada.com) and the venue Breathe Yoga Studio ( www.breathe-yogastudio.com).

New: see photos at the opening >>

The moxieDaDA side of the show will have a soft closing at the end of the month, more details soon.

April 16, 2007 - PHOTOS from "The Art of Politics"(Group Show)
@ Pavement, Pittsburgh PA, April

This is the first time I've participated in an art auction and it was a great experience. The space, the shoe store Pavement, was a really great space (Check out their wall paper below, even the walls were really cool). We had a wonderful turn-out too. Good luck Heather!

"Self-portrait (Pandora)" was donated for an auction to benefit the campaign of Heather Arnet for School Board.

Heather Arnet is currently the Executive Director for The Women and Girls Foundation of Southwest Pennsylvania, which sponsored the fantastic exhibit F-word at the Warhol Museum last year.

Also, thank you to Kathleen Newman for putting the event together.

New: See photos >>

March 10th - Photos from the opening of "Angles" with Stacy Gross, at modernFormations

New: photos from the opening!
The openings were fantastic, thank you to all that showed up and had some apples!...

Feb. 2007 - MCS News Magazine

<<Me (Joana) and Alison Barth

The Mellon College of Science News Magazine has come out! It features a blurb on my collaboration with Dr. Alison Barth that has resulted in the pieces "Spines" and "Mouse Hippocampus.."

My bioart work was born while working as an undergraduate in neurobiology with Dr. Barth and developmental biology with Dr. Ettensohn. The beautiful images that I was exposed to on a daily basis led to my putting them onto the canvas. The "Mouse Hippocampus...", in particular, received recognition as the cover for the scientific journal "Journal of Neuroscience" (April 2005)!..

>> See the cover.

Feb.3, 2007 - Commission to CMU

The Department of Statistics at Carnegie Mellon University, in the person of Marck Schervish, wanted to say thank you to Robert Kass for his years as Head of the department. But they wanted to do it in a new way, after much thinking Mark decided that a great idea would be have an art piece created that would symbolize Rob's own research. Marb and Valerie Ventura contacted me last year to accomplish this idea. Andy Schwartz was kind enough to let me in on the research he has done with Rob and give me access to a lot of fantastic imagery that they have generated on the neurobiology side of this research. As such, "Animal Neurons - a Circle" was born. On Saturday Feb.3rd, at a Faculty Lunch, the piece was delivered to Rob - much to his suprise!

Mellon College of Science Alumni Magazine

MCS Alumni Magazine (expected publication December 2006) will feature a blurb on my collaboration with Dr. Alison Barth that has resulted in the pieces "Spines" and "Mouse Hippocampus.."

Oct.2006 - WQED Interview

Susie Meister made a piece on "Art In Transit" for WQED and I was featured as one of the participating artists. It was a great experience and you can check us out here on YouTube! It's really wonderful that "Art in Transit" keeps receiving press and it's going to happen again in 2007, so look out for more calls for artists and new art on the buses!..

Oct.2006 - Commission

And my thanks to David Hill, fellow CMU alumnus, who is the owner of the piece I show off to the cameras!

In Volume Bumba: the First In Volume Bumba: the Second	>> May 13, 2006 Encyclopedia Desctructica release: As most of you know, Encyclopedia Destructica started its 2nd collection of Issues, Volume Bumba with Bumba: The First in March. This issue was a mail-art extravaganza linking artists in Pittsburgh and artists in residence at the Vermont Studio Center during the month of February. It can currently be found at coffee shops all over Pittsburgh (including 61c, Coffee Tree, Kiva Han, Bee Hive, Tuscany, Crazy Mocha, Beleza, and Quiet Storm), Copacetic Comics, Phantom of the Attic, and Paul's CDs. ----MATTRESS FACTORY CRAFT FACTORY-- Bumba: The Second will be debuting this weekend at the Mattress Factory Craft Factory event Saturday May 13th! Be there between noon and 7pm to check out the some great stuff from Pittsburgh creators. This Issue is edited by John Thomas Menesini (author of The Last Great Glass Meat Million and the upcoming Epitaph). This issue includes writing by: Nikki Allen, Spat Cannon, Che Elias, Michael S. Begnal, Tait McKenzie Johnson, Selena Orkwis, and Joseph L. Flatley, as well as art by Joana Ricou and Ben Hernstrom! AND-- I just heard I'll be in the NEXT volume Bumba too! More news on that soon.
	>> April 29, 2006 Eve was awarded Second Place at the Annual Spring Juried Show at ModernFormations.
	>> March 21, 2006 The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review put out an article on the "Art In Transit" initiative that included several interviews including one with me.
	>> March 30, 2006 Female Art page has been added! View for details on all the new pieces and the artist statement for their first showing"Into the Dark", happening all this week at the UC Gallery at CMU (details)!
	>> March 15, 2006 Attended the PYP's "Art and Business Networking Event" at Dowe's downtown.
	>> March 28, 2006 BioArt artist statement has been expanded, new pieces added!!
	>> Feb. 9, 2006 "Sarah" will be part of the "Art in Transit" initiative! This project aims to better the bus system in Pittsburgh by filling it with original art, to inspire commuters and Pittsburghers in general and call attention to such a vital aspect of life in the city. More details to come. See artbusonline.org for details.
	>> Feb. 4, 2006 New additions to the Exhibition History page! The shows "Through the Left Eye", "Kaleidoscope 05" and "10 ft. long" now have pictures posted.
	>> Jan, 2006 "Untitled (Nails)" will be featured at the MOSAIC exhibit, in February at the University Center of Carnegie Mellon University. More details soon.