Artists, researchers pair up for exhibit

Aug. 26—For the second year in a row, Phoenix Bioscience Core launched its Artists + Researchers Exhibition at the Bentley Gallery in Phoenix.

Ten artists from around the state paired with 10 researchers from the state universities and companies like TGen to create pieces reflecting each researcher's work.

"As the director of art and medicine for the University of Arizona College of Medicine—Phoenix, I'm always looking for different things to add to our curriculum for medical students," said Phoenix Bioscience Core Arts Committee Chair Dr. Cynthia Standley.

So when Standley learned that the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California had partnered artists with researchers to make artwork based on their projects, she knew she had found a way to bridge the gap — and artists agreed.

"I think that there is a difference between the disciplines when it comes to academics and art and academics and science, technology, engineering and math, but historically, science and art have always been very close and we've worked really closely with scientists," said Mesa artist Zach Valent.

"Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo are some pretty prominent artists who have worked with architects and engineers," added Valent, who created a concrete piece for the exhibit.

The art mirrors more modern scientific studies like the impact of AI from a behavioral health economics standpoint and the impact that the foster care system has on child development.

"We all realize that the arts are a language for everyone and what better way to try to explain a lot of the research that tends to be hidden away in labs and in clinics where people just don't have access to it or they don't even know what's going on," Standley said.

Standley began searching for the second cohort of researchers and artists nearly a year ago.

The selected artists were given information about researchers and the cohort met at an event that was like speed dating, with artists and researchers giving elevator pitches about the work.

Among the artists is Ahwatukee muralist Suzanne Whitaker, who was introduced to Scottsdale resident Amy Armstrong-Heimsoth, the Department Chair + Associate Clinical professor of occupational therapy at Northern Arizona University.

Armstrong-Heimsoth has spent the last six years studying the American foster care system.

"This piqued my interest because, as Amy says, nobody really thinks about these children in that demographic and I knew nothing about them," Whitaker said.

"The subject itself was just heart-wrenching to me, especially because of my work with teens as a facilitator for grief, because I am an activist and a mother of two young adults finding their way. I just felt like (this research) really tapped into all of that for me.

So, Whitaker partnered with Armstrong-Heimsoth and the Phoenix nonprofit OCJ Kids, which works with foster and at-risk children, via Zoom, and learned about the kids' struggles.

Whitaker began thinking of typical memories of playing board games with family, something many foster kids likely have not experienced, and decided to model her art piece after a gaming board, similar to games like Mouse Trap and Life, to help educate people about children in the foster care system.

"I'm hoping (this art piece) increases awareness that there is this population of youth that are out there, that despite all the programming and all the billions of dollars that are spent on helping with transition programming and extended foster care and things like that, their outcomes are terrible," said Armstrong-Heimsoth.

Valent was paired with Dr. Derek Cridebring, the director of the Molecular Medicine Division at the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen) in Phoenix.

Valent created a glass and cement medical illustration of cellular interactions and extracellular space that might be seen through a microscope.

"His work relates to some research that I've always been interested in about how we can utilize communication between cells to better make the body communicate that it has cancer inside of it," Valent said.

"So, I chose to convey his research and the space that he exists in by adding paper documents that were used inside of his research into the piece while constructing a piece that one might think is like a medical illustration or something that you would see through a microscope when thinking about genetics research and cellular research."

Standley hopes that throughout this process, the artists will be able to grow through their respective mediums.

"It's really important for us to see that the artist is going to grow in their medium and that they're trying something they've never tried before," Standley said.

"We want them to grow and try things that they haven't even tried. And I'm really excited about the second cohort."

The exhibition will be on display at the Bentley Gallery, 250 E. McKinley St., Phoenix, Aug. 19-26 and will reappear at the Phoenix Bioscience Core building Sept. 14.

Information : bentleygallery.com/exhibition and/phoenixbiosciencecore.com/pbc-and-the-arts.