Rocks, Leaves and Insects Featured in New AAAS Exhibit

Bruce Hodge took the photograph "Mind's Eye" at Point Lobos in Carmel, California. [Artwork © Bruce Hodge]

View a slideshow of works from the exhibit, including a larger version of this image

Looking at one of Bruce Hodge's digitally refined landscape photographs makes you want to reach out and touch it. A ripple-free pond begs you to dip a toe, a smoothed rock formation invites you to trace its contours, and a thick, sturdy oak tree beckons a climber.

Striking features of ordinary, natural subjects are highlighted by the artwork of Hodge and sculptor Andrea Uravitch in the new AAAS exhibit, which opens with a reception Thursday 29 November from 5-7 p.m. and is free to the public.

Complex combinations of colors pervade nature but often go unnoticed. They can astonish in a piece of art. "It's the element of surprise that is often present in a work of art," said AAAS curator Shirley Koller, who arranged the exhibit with Virginia Stern, director of the AAAS Art of Science and Technology program.

"There are all of these forms that are part of our natural world, and people don't perceive them," said photographer Hodge. "Some of my images are looking at things that would not ordinarily be considered interesting to look at, like mud dribbling down the side of a cliff."

As a resident of the San Francisco Bay area, Hodge need not travel far beyond the nearby ocean coast and mountain ranges for inspiration. But he has ventured to Belize and Hawaii to photograph various plants and to Maine to photograph ponds. Hodge has 34 images in his "Unseen World" show at AAAS.

Hodge, a computer scientist who works at Adobe Systems Inc., says that skills from his day job eased his transition from traditional darkroom procedures to digital imaging tools. Although he was not involved in the development of the Adobe-created computer program Photoshop, Hodge uses the program to enhance his photos.

"My use of Photoshop is to try to retain colors and textures and carry them through to the final print," he said. Hodge uses a hybrid process for his work: He first takes photographs on traditional transparency film with a medium-format camera. He then has high-resolution scans made of photographs he considers "promising" and uses Photoshop to digitally manipulate the scanned images.

Limitations in how computer-related devices capture color make what ends up on paper a pale comparison to what is seen in real life, Hodge said. "When you see something in print or on a computer screen, it is narrowed down from the wider gamut of colors available in the real world," he explained.

In his work, Hodge struggles to preserve the intense colors in nature and to discover naturally occurring compositions that draw in the viewer. His subjects, such as a patch of a lily pad-speckled pond reflecting clouds or a scrap of ocean kelp washed up on a rock, are natural features that often escape the attention of humans.

Andrea Uravitch's 17-inch long Macedonia Beetle has a 19-inch wing span and rests on a curly willow grid. [Artwork © Andrea Uravitch]

View a slideshow of works from the exhibit, including a larger version of this image

In addition to Hodge's photographs, the new AAAS exhibit will feature sculptures of various animals by Arlington-based artist Andrea Uravitch. A mix of life-like beetles, frogs, and lizards will be the focus for her AAAS show, "Nature Magnified."

Like Hodge, Uravitch uses her artwork to highlight ordinarily unseen objects. "What struck me about the two of us," she said regarding Hodge, "is that we really just want people to stop and look at nature more carefully. Give it more of a presence, and think about it."

Uravitch begins her sculptures with photography. She takes digital pictures of her subjects in order to do intensive anatomical observational studies on them before beginning her sculptures. Most of her current works are based on insects, and to study real-life insect anatomy Uravitch will collect dead bugs and scrutinize them with a magnifying glass.

"I have several boxes of dead cicadas," she said. Uravitch overcame her initial discomfort with her subject matter by studying it closely. "I was never afraid of them, I just didn't like them," she said. "But it's a way to see beauty in nature."

Uravitch finds beauty—and an artistic challenge—in the colors, patterns, textures and forms in her subjects. She combines a range of materials from delicate thread to hard ceramic to produce pieces that are remarkably accurate in anatomy and color. For instance, Uravitch creates her cicadas with ceramic and welded steel armature, transparent sewn ribbon wings and crochet-encased wire appendages.

To display her pieces, Uravitch constructs ecologically inspired backdrops. She'll place a sculpted lizard on a weathered door or a tree branch and insects investigating flowers she makes from handmade paper. Her crafted fauna can be so life-like that they sometimes fool other animals. "I've had real animals growl at or attack my work," said Uravitch, who also teaches commercial art at the Career Center, a vocational high school in Arlington. "I feel very complimented when a real animal reacts to my animals."

The exhibit runs through 29 February and is part of the AAAS Art of Science and Technology Program, established in 1985 to showcase art about science, art by scientists, or art that employs a new or original technology or technique. "This exhibition is art about nature, of field and fauna," said AAAS program director Stern. "It also includes art by a scientist, and it is art with a special process."

The AAAS Gallery is located at 12th and H streets, N.W., in Washington, D.C. It is open Monday through Friday from 9:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m.

Molly McElroy

27 November 2007