8 September 2008

World's first graduates in Forensic Art display their work

The first graduates to pass through the world’s only degree course in Forensic & Medical Art are displaying their work in Dundee this week - including the reconstructed face of an Egyptian mummy, new portraits of 18th century Dutch criminals, and a surgical training model for cancer surgery.

The MSc Forensic & Medical Art course at the University of Dundee is the only one of its kind in the world. Five students form the first graduating class and are exhibiting their degree projects at the University’s annual Masters Show this week.

The projects reflect the diverse work of forensic and medical artists, taking in historical reconstruction, criminal investigation and surgical procedure.

'I am delighted to see our first cohort of graduates come through the course with such an interesting and varied range of projects,' said course convener Greg Mahoney, who worked as a forensic artist in the Boston Police Department for more than 20 years prior to his move to Dundee, 'They will leave as the most highly qualified new practitioners in this field. I know many professionals, myself included, who wish this course had been available at the start of their careers.'

'Our work crosses all sorts of boundaries, from current criminal investigations to delving into history, and from developing facial recognition software to, as we see in the Masters Show, developing a new surgical training model for the other end of the body, helping train clinicians in colo-rectal cancer procedures,' said Senior Lecturer Dr Caroline Wilkinson, 'The combination of forensic science and art is one which has fantastic potential - the sort of potential we are seeing realised by our students.'

Sarah Shrimpton’s project has seen her carry out facial reconstruction work on an unknown Egyptian mummy while Nigel Cockerton has produced new facial depictions of a trio of 18th century executed Dutch criminals, allowing comparisons with portrait sketches done at the time.

Hilary Sturrock and Morag McLean have both worked on facial recognition projects, developing new software techniques and analysing how we identify faces.

Jane Wood has produced a new working model for teaching and developing new techniques in colo-rectal cancer surgery.

The Forensic and Medical Art Unit is a dynamic collaboration at the University of Dundee between the College of Life Sciences and Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design. Forging a link between these two disciplines, the Unit's work has widespread applications, including human identification, archaeological investigation, medical illustration and museum & media exhibition.

The Unit is perhaps most well known for work in facial reconstruction,the process of rebuilding a face from the skull, both to aid forensic identification and archaeological investigation. Earlier this year Dr Wilkinson and her team were the focus of worldwide media attention for their work in rebuilding the face of the composer Johan Sebastian Bach (see: www.dundee.ac.uk/pressreleases/2008/prfeb08/bach.html)

The MSc Forensic & Medical Art course will welcome its second cohort of students this month, doubling in size to approximately ten postgraduate places.

Students and staff members at the Unit are trained in a range of art skills from the traditional to state-of-the-art technologies. These include the application of virtual reality sculpture systems for facial reconstruction. The Unit provides forensic and medical art services both in-house and to the wider community.

The Masters Show exhibits will be on show in the Cooper Gallery, Duncan of Jordanstone College, Saturday September 6th to Thursday September 18th. For further information on Dundee Masters Show 2008 see: www.exhibitions.dundee.ac.uk/DundeeMastersShow08.html.

For media enquiries contact:
Roddy Isles
Head, Press Office
University of Dundee
Nethergate Dundee, DD1 4HN
TEL: 01382 384910
E-MAIL: r.isles@dundee.ac.uk