Jeannine Osborne

Dundee Unversity Press 2004

Look Closer
Jeannine Osborne, Wendy Brown, Jan Hendry,

This exhibition has been conceived by two scientists, Dr Rogers-Bald and Dr Martin Milner, from St Andrews University, and three women artists who all have scientific backgrounds.

The work displayed is based on microscopic slides, mainly from the Victorian era, that were used as teaching aids to further understanding of the natural world at a time when this was a new and fascinating field to explore. They invested grace, precision and time in mounting the various biological artefacts captured in them. These slides are of value both as scientific artefacts and as art forms.

Wendy Brown, originally New York State, USA, now living in Cupar, Fife, previously worked at Harvard at Conquered Fields Station in the Museum of Comparative Zoology. The beauty of the microscopic slides has inspired a series of mixed media, colourful, expressionistic works.

Jan Hendry, based in Fife, has collected and processed minerals found in Arran, the Highlands, Fife and Angus, to make pigments for her paintings on paper. The red and yellow ochres and the coal black, all come from Carboniferous rocks, dated between 360 and 286 million years old, and formed before birds, mammals and flowers evolved. Most life on land at that time was invertebrate. It is appropriate that she has made her work with pigments inspired by the forms of the creatures that evolved in this time.

Jeannine Osborne has maintained her interest in the world of science since her earlier degree in Earth Science. Although Jeannine's work is mainly figurative, for this exhibition she has made large abstract oil paintings that correspond to manipulated, magnified images of the slides.

Jan and Jeannine are both 2003 graduates from the School of Fine Art, DJCAD.

Lower Foyer Gallery, DJCAD Mon - Fri 9.30am - 6pm, Sat 10.30am-4.30pm, admission free, until February 7.