30 January 2013

Students' work on show in Zoology Museum

A special exhibition of artworks by students from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design (DJCAD) will open at the University of Dundee's D'Arcy Thompson Zoology Museum this weekend.

This show ties in with two other exhibitions featuring artists inspired by natural science, and in particular by its first professor of biology, from whom the Zoology Museum takes its name.

Eleven students from the Master of Fine Art programme at DJCAD have contributed work to the latest exhibition, which is called 'Acts of Displacement'. As well as drawings, prints and other two-dimensional works, the exhibition features numerous installation pieces hidden in the display cases among the zoology specimens.

Some have even used the specimens as part of the exhibit, such as Kate Clayton's 'Dancing with D'Arcy' piece, which features an unsuspecting gibbon in a tutu.

Museum curator Matthew Jarron said, "We currently have two exhibitions in the Tower Building featuring professional artists who have been inspired by the ideas and collections of D'Arcy Thompson.

"We wanted to have some special openings of the Zoology Museum while these shows were on, and as the Master of Fine Art students had recently visited the museum as part of their course, it seemed like a perfect opportunity to invite them to show some work in this unique venue."

'Unnatural Wonders', a collection of four large-scale paintings by Mark Wright that draws on visual imagery sourced from organic structures and forms to explore ideas of visual perception and concepts of beauty, is currently being shown in the Tower Foyer Gallery.

The exhibition in the Lamb Gallery takes its title, 'Drawn from Structures Living and Dead', from a section of D'Arcy Thompson's seminal book 'On Growth and Form'. The three contributing artists - Gemma Anderson, Mirna Sarajlic and Lindsay Sekulowicz. - work in various media but all of them use drawing as a starting point to help understand the natural world.

Thomspon's book, 'On Growth and Form', pioneered the science of mathematical biology and proved hugely influential to scientists and artists around the world. The specimens contained in the Zoology Museum have long been a source of inspiration to artists, and a £100,000 Art Fund grant has enabled the University to acquire more works inspired by Thompson's work, and bring more artists to Dundee to use the collection for their work.

'Acts of Displacement' will be open at the D'Arcy Thompson Zoology Museum in the Carnelley Building from 12-5pm on Saturday, February 2nd. Admission is free, and the exhibition will also be open on Saturday 2nd March from the same times.

More information is available by calling 01382 384310 or visiting www.dundee.ac.uk/museum.

For media enquiries contact:
Grant Hill
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University of Dundee
Nethergate, Dundee, DD1 4HN
TEL: 01382 384768
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