Art

Item Description

ARTIST:              Danièle Schiffmann
TITLE:                 La timidité des cimes
MEDIUM:           Monotype, 16” x 20”, unframed

This original artwork was created for Art on Science: 26 études an internattional portfolio featuring pictures by artists and words by scientists. This written commentary is by Françoise Moos, Neurobiologie Department at CNRS:
 
Neurobiologist, my research focused on the functional plasticity of neuronal networks in different physiological situations. This plasticity involves the glial cells (microglia, astrocytes) that - via the diffusion of molecules in the brain tissue - allow the normal functioning of neuronal networks. Drawing and painting were for a long time, the means of expression of my visual sensibility put aside by my research - but allowing me to build bridges with the artists: both approaches involving the work of hands and thought with inspirations and creations specific to each area. In science, my motivation was to understand functioning, to establish postulates with a claim of truth in order to reveal the complexity of the real world. The artistic space allowed a rich and unconstrained escape, the truth was no longer the only goal and the impact force of an artwork could be linked to nonquantifiable parameters and speak to emotion; an escape from the real world that has also developed and enriched my own scientific intuition. It is by losing myself freely in these perceptions that I could access and share the spiritual and emotional world of Danièle.

My research on the mechanisms of communication without contact between neurons and glial cells immediately aroused in the artist an analogy with the “crown shyness”, as a visible metaphor of the invisible brain world. Indeed, odorous volatile molecules or electric messages emitted by the leaves - allowing the branches not to touch - evoke the cerebral “volume transmission”.

Although scientists have not yet been able to resolve the origin of this crown shyness, and even if the black box of the brain remains enigmatic, these enigmas feed the artist’s quest and the scientist’s passion. Using the peri-vegetal white halos, previously observed on several monotypes, as eyewitnesses of the exchanges between crowns seemed relevant. But how to technically and reliably reproduce what is due to chance? It is by a precise and repeated experimental work, like scientific work, by combining perseverance and different techniques, without forgetting the subterfuges, that Danièle was able to represent and symbolize the impalpable. I was amazed by the result, especially as her monotype offered an aerial view of the timidity of the summits: the white crowns exposed to the sun and their whitish hazy halos being just like the subtle signals emitted by leaves to signal the limit not to be crossed. Down below, in the shade of the white crowns, dark root and mycorrhizal networks and plants communicate with each other to mutual benefit. A rich and relevant artistic vision beyond the scientific challenge!

Item Special Note

Free domestic shipping.

All artworks are 16” x 20”, unframed and will be shipped with a printed copy of the scientist’s text.

For further information about the portfolio, please visit our Art on Science: 26 études website: http://AS26project.com