The Phoenix Airport Museum hosts its first-ever Night at the Museum event: Art and Science Come to Life at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport on Friday, March 24, from 4-7 pm at Terminal 4, level 3 gallery.

​The event celebrates the Museum’s current Artist and Researcher exhibition presenting art inspired by science. The exhibition was developed by the Phoenix Bioscience Core where nine local artists were paired with researchers to create artwork based on their different areas of study. Working side-by-side in the lab, classroom, and art studio, the resulting works are visual representations of the scientific progress happening in our city and state.

Delivering complex information to the masses is not easy. Artists have always stretched the boundaries of concept and creativity. The goal of the Artist + Researcher Exhibition is to see what happens when the talents of both science and art join forces to conceptualize a way to communicate the complex. 

The Phoenix Bioscience Core established the Artists + Researcher Program with Phoenix-based Bentley Gallery to connect the complex life science research happening on the PBC with a wider audience. Nine researchers from each of the three public universities — Arizona State University, Northern Arizona University and the University of Arizona — worked alongside local artists to establish a transformational piece of artwork that shares their research in a new medium.

All of these works of art + science will then come together to form the first Artist + Researcher Exhibition Tour. The Artist + Researcher Exhibition is one of many programs within the Art in Medicine initiative on the Phoenix Bioscience Core. The initiative aims to explore what happens when research is presented through an artistic lens. 

The first cohort of the PBC Artists & Researchers program finished their projects in the spring of 2022. They will be on display around Arizona during the 2022-2023 academic year. The first public display will be on September 2nd at the Health Sciences Education Building.

Tissue Study I

Mark Pomilio + Dr. Taben Hale

After agreeing on a date and time, I visited Dr Hale’s research lab and was introduced to her work. During our meeting, Dr Hale outlined her methods and goals through discussion and examples of which revealed the materials and systems utilized to achieve the desired outcome. Aspects of her research involve documentation through digital imaging. These images are both informative and visually fascinating. I asked Dr Hale to send several of these images, and they became a starting point for my inquiry. 

Description of the piece

Tissue Study #1 represents an integration of my creative mathematical, geometric methods developed over the last several decades and those images I experienced through the visual recordings of Dr Hale’s research with cardiac tissue pathological remodeling. First, I began by triangulating the relationships between two geometric forms: the pentagon and hexagon. These two forms are often utilized when expressing chemical cell structures in scientific documentation.  During each painting session, I added an additional layer of geometric forms, which were connected to the previous layer of forms through additional triangulation. This method was my attempt to mirror the naturally occurring building systems found in the myocardial connective tissue which provides the structural scaffolding for the heart cells and thus, relating my structural methods to that which I experienced in Dr Hale’s research imagery. This building method extended into many painting sessions and ultimately represents upwards of nearly twenty layers, one applied to another, with subtractive and additive decisions made throughout the long painting process.

Art and science typically don’t mix, but at the Phoenix Bioscience Core (PBC), they compliment each other perfectly. The PBC and its Arts Committee announced the second cohort of its Artists + Researcher Exhibit, which pairs local artists with PBC researchers to develop a collaborative piece of artwork showcasing the researchers’ work in a new medium. The first cohort is now on display at Sky Harbor Airport. The 10 teams in this second cohort have begun their collaborative process. The art will debut in the fall and will be available for public viewing following a grand opening.

“It’s really about breaking down that complex information into something that is understandable and approachable by the general public,” said Dr. Cynthia Standley, Chair of the PBC Arts Committee. Dr. Standley is a neurophysiologist with a passion for the arts as well. She’s worked in art and medicine since 2014 and believes now is the perfect time to bring these two passions together.

“A State of Being: He Gong and Mark Pomilio”

Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum, Mesa AZ

December 13, 2019 – March 29, 2020

A cross-cultural exchange, this exhibition brings together the dynamic black and white works of Chinese artist He Gong and scientifically inspired geometric imagery of Arizona artist Mark Pomilio. Their friendship was forged several years ago during a residency program in Cheng du, China that He Gong hosted and Pomilio attended. Even with contrasting methods and subject matter, He Gong and Pomilio’s work capture the complexity of artistic expression and the human experience.