Review

"Leaf Section", Projected Image.

Stanton Fernald

5-8 p.m. (Opening Reception)

Kaw Valley Arts and Humanities
756 Armstrong
Kansas City, KS
913.371.0024

Hours after Second Friday: 1-5 p.m. Tuesday-Friday (call for appointment)
Runs through: Nov. 6.

Artist's site: http://www.s-fernald.com
Gallery site: http://www.kvah.org

Besides having a thriving arts community, the Kansas City area is increasingly a hub for bioscience research. After dark tonight, the two will meet on the sidewalk outside Kaw Valley Arts and  Humanities.

Stanton Fernald is a scientific and technical illustrator as well as being an artist. That brightly colored, organic, circular image on the concrete ... the one that looks as though it had been done in fluorescent paint?

That work -- a section of a leaf, which can be seen above in a different setting -- is his. So are all the works on the walls (and one on the floor)  inside KVAH's main gallery.

But Fernald doesn't paint with any physical medium. He uses light, projecting the images in his show from hand-built devices that look like something out of Doctor Who.

Some of his work deals with conventional architecture: the Pantheon in Rome, the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Ariz. Most of it, though, magnifies the even more awe-inspiring constructions of the natural world.

Leaf sections and plant cells. A centipede. The human eye -- several of them, actually, projected onto a bed of white sand. Even cross-sections from the reproductive system of a mouse make an (unexpectedly gorgeous) appearance.

This is a show best seen in low ambient light, because that lets Fernald's images shine -- literally. And his self-designed hardware is as much a part of the show as the projected images themselves. In several cases, viewers can interact with the projectors to alter the works' appearance. (Y0u'll know which ones you can touch.)

Since light is a non-tangible material that can transform the way we perceive space, I find manipulating light to be the most fascinating part of projected art, Fernald writes. The work provides a wonderful technical challenge as I attempt to make the projectors themselves a major part of the installation, rather than hiding the technology that projects the image.

There's no hiding the hard science, either. Nor should there be. It's more proof that learning can be a beautiful thing. In Fernald's words:

My most recent work utilizes images from a confocal microscope. Laser confocal microscopy is a microscope imaging process where lasers are used to scan a micro thin layer of cells. Proteins that comprise the tissue of the cells glow in different colors when scanned by various wavelengths of lasers. The resulting images provide a spectacular array of structure and color that allows us to peer into the vast and amazing architecture not perceptible in any other way. This process is a highly valued tool in biomedical research as well as a wonderful asset to those, like myself, who are fortunate enough to have access to this tool of science in creating art.

Fernald won't be the only fortunate person involved in tonight's show. That number has to include anyone who walks out with a new or renewed appreciation for the art of science ... and vice versa.

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