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News

• June 29 - Spiral of Life Series Available for Purchase
• June 26 - New Wallpaper
• May 1 - Free Bioart Wallpaper
• April 11 - Work in University of Lisbon Center for Image in science and Art On-Line Archive
• April 11 - New paintings
• April 10 - PAPS 2010
• Mar 31 - Art in Hollywood
• Feb 16 - Residency at Children's Museum of Pittsburgh
• Feb 6 - Pure Rubbish is back-online
• Dec 10 - "The Tree, the Spiral and the Web" Seminary (Portugal)
• Nov 09 - New website section and new prints
• Oct 09 - Darwin2009: Spiral of Life Mural Series

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Art in Hollywood
My paintings were cast in a movie!
See below>>

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."

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 >>

Currently on View in Pittsburgh

In Pittsburgh, you can find my work on view at:

Rare landscape art at Ibiza Restaurant in the South Side, 2224 E Carson St, Pittsburgh, PA.

"Girls+Apples" pieces at SUGAR Boutique in Bloomfield location on 3703 Butler Street.

And, FemArt collection at Istambul, on 4130 Butler St at 42nd.