The Blue Star Contemporary Art Museum featured several compelling and intriguing art galleries on Thursday, March 6. Such galleries included “Post Penis” featuring Paul Rodriquez, “Now What” by Claire Watson, “Euroscapes” from Mira Hnatyshyn-Hudson and “Organismo” from the Colorado native Rosane Volchan O’Conor.
The main attraction was “Organismo,” which surrounded the whole exhibit with different shapes and magnitudes of artwork. Walking through the exhibit, visitors experience pieces of art sprouting from the floor, hanging from the ceiling and stretching from the walls to create a unique three-dimensional presentation. The display has the appearance of walking through the inside of a human cell.
O’Conor was born in Rio de Janeiro in 1959. She has always had a deep passion for biology, polyphonic composition, cytology and music and her work is organic in its visual language. Her recent exhibitions include Linhas Polimórficas (Polymorphic Lines) at the Goodwin Fine Arts in Denver, Colorado and Linhas Circulares at the Kirk Hopper Gallery in Dallas.
Many of her pieces were formed using glass, clay, welded metal wires, torch-bent neon lights and other materials. Several of the pieces hung from the ceiling were made to look like the microfilament and the microtubules of a cell. A great display within this “cell” of an art exhibit was made from Styrofoam tubes hanging from the ceiling, squirming around. A light above these tubes created a shadow effect as bacteria were looked upon through a microscope.
Many of the art pieces were also on pillars, showing the full effect of what goes on inside a cell. Some paintings also represent the construction of cells. These paintings reflect what is going on in the art surrounding it. Each painting, with different hues of yellow, green and blue, make up the beautiful yet chaotic blueprints of cells.
O’Conor reveals, “’Organismo’ is a large-scale, multilayered, site-specific installation rich ambience of bio-morphs crawling off the walls, hanging crystallized in space and mutating in clusters across the floor. Viewers are invited to enter a bustling interconnected world of microorganisms existing independent of the laws of scientific reality. The elaborate work is at once chaotic and harmonious, expansive and intricate.”
O’Conor also acknowledges that her work is a reflection of microscopic and macroscopic elements. The microscopic elements include protozoa, cells and nerves, while the macroscopic aspects include land formations, planets and galaxies. All of these elements are presented in abstract form in the exhibit.
“Organismo” is for those who have a deep appreciation of art and biology. The exhibit brings the two together in an impressive display. “Organism,” “Post Penis,” “Now What” and “Euroscapes” are open and free to the public. For more information, visit bluestarart.org.
