Gerladine Ondrizek, Chromosome 17, 2009, sateen and cotton voile, 9’ x 36”, University of Washington Medical Center, Seattle, reproduced with permission from the artist.
Make the Time: Beauty in Genetics by Geraldine Ondrizek
Today is your last day to see Geraldine Ondrizek’s paintings of chromosomes and DNA at the Kirkland Arts Center in Kirkland, Washington. If you miss it there, you can see it at Western Washington University’s Western Gallery or the University of Houston Gallery of Art and the Johnson Space Center in the fall.
Informed by her collaboration with biologists and geneticists, Ondrizek creates paintings of human chromosome maps in bright colors on long cloth panels, each labeled in embroidery with the type of cancer correlated with the particular genetic marker. She does something similar with silk panels mounted on light boxes.
Ondrizek’s collaborator is Robin Bennett a genetic counselor at the University of Washington who works with families that are concerned about inherited diseases and are seeking genetic testing. Ondrizek can empathize with these clients having suffered the loss of a child to a disease caused by a genetic anomaly.
Ondrizek hopes to make genetic information more easily understood through her colorful and attractive paintings. With her art, she wishes to facilitate a dialog about genetic information that can be frightening and confusing for people.
To purchase scarves designed by Ondrizek and support cancer education and research, click here.
