The artists

Peter James Smith

Peter James Smith's collaboration is with scientist Steve Rintoul

My paintings gather together phases of scientific endeavour and images of nature. Illusionistic image and text are formatted as elements in a whole cinematic visual field; overlapping, underlapping and intertwined. The images contain a sense of romance which alludes to the continuing presence of history in our daily lives. Indeed, we all carry with us a longing for things as they were: still life as botanical drawings; landscape as the Hudson River School; science as an enlightened understanding.

To this end, handwritten citations, notes, jottings, diagrams, titles and maps appear as gestural signs in different fonts across the illusionistic image. The handwriting carries with it a genetic smearing. The image carries the longing. There is an attempt here to humanise the character of scientific enquiry.

Bibliographies referencing scientific works are written on the front of the canvas. This is not postmodern appropriation, but an attempt to make evident the evolutionary scientific process of building current research ideas from the seeds sown by past researchers.