...Making art about science has always been a difficult proposition: it requires
finding visually striking examples or emotionally engaging analogies. Because
the Center for Chemical Evolution’s work focuses on the emergence of complex
molecules through the self-combination of simpler ones, Dilling looked for ways
of developing complex visual forms from simpler ones, using rules that limited
artistic decision.
Her series of “Visual Chemistry” prints is the most elaborate illustration of
this principle. Over the space of a grid that could be elaborated indefinitely,
each print has either a color or a visual element in common with the previous
print, while it adds or subtracts elements or colors in a process that
eventually makes the individual prints quite different from one another. The duo
of “Assembly (blue)” and “Assembly (red)” makes the point much more simply: the
same two intaglio plates are rotated and printed in different colors to form
distinct artworks.
Terri Dilling, Rocky Road, acrylic, screen print and mixed media on panel
The idea that elementary chemical interactions might grow in complexity to
take on a life of their own is communicated more kinetically in the “Common
Ancestry” video, showing the evolution of two of Dilling’s paintings, each
beginning from the same starting point but growing from there in different
visual directions. The paintings, “Yellow Blossom” and “Rocky Road,” hang nearby
in the gallery, making the point that a finished object embodies a considerable
now-invisible past history...
For Jerry Cullum's entire review, please visit ArtsATL.com
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