Suzanne Stryk @ NIH

The title of the show, This View of Life, is from the last line of Darwin's Origin of Species, and refers to my fascination with evolution and the variety of life on earth. My work features birds and insects, sometimes set in architectural plans or in actual books attached to the panels, signifying our wish to collect, understand and organize the wild. Many images, such as Little Wing, are metaphors for our own personal experience of life as well as explorations of nature. Somewhere in each painting the DNA double helix, genomic sequences, chromosomes or writing appears, suggesting questions such as: How do we use symbols to connect with but also distance ourselves from nature? And has the mapping of the genome unraveled mysteries or simply created more?

—Suzanne Stryk


This exhibit is in conjunction with DNA day on April 25th.