1999
48” x 12” each piece, 3 pieces
48” x 44” overall installed
Silk, painted masonite, mixed media
Northern Blot III
-
DNA
Northern Blot III
The artwork Northern Blot III is a material and conceptual engagement with a pivotal scientific technique. Originally a research tool for scientists to determine if and when a gene was being expressed in a human tissue, the Northern Blot technique evolved into a specialized “truth” test for verifying full and degraded RNA fragments in therapeutic development. Created in 1999, this work grapples with the emergent authority and promise of such genetic testing.
The installation, composed of three vertical rectangles, directly references the scale of chromosome gel slide scans. Executed in silk, painted masonite, and mixed media, the work explores the basis of genetics—heredity and variation—through its visual construction. The tray backing casts a nude skin tone, explicitly connecting the abstract genetic data to the human body. Critically, marks stained onto a poly-mesh are stretched over a shallow tray, allowing the stained marks to cast shadows beneath the mesh, visually enacting chromosomal replication and the creation of a “copy”. This subtle phenomenon shifts with the angle and intensity of light. The sheer scale of the vertical lanes transforms the simplicity of the mark-making, alluding to the profound power this new testing introduced into scientific research. In this way, the work posits genetic information as a universal language, much like musical scores or mathematics.