Luke Jerram, HIV, Series 2, 2011
LUKE JERRAM
HIV, Series 2, 2011
From the series "Glass Microbiology"
Flame-worked glass
7 1/2 x 7 1/2 x 7 1/2 inches
Courtesy of the artist
CURRENTLY ON VIEW: Stamp 1st Floor, West Study Lounge
In his “Glass Microbiology” series, Luke Jerram contemplates the global impact of major diseases and considers how artificial coloring of scientific imagery affects public understanding of these phenomena. Here he represents a single molecule of the human immunodeficiency virus, isolated and magnified by a factor of one million to a scale viewers might imagine holding in their hands. Jerram uses glass to replicate the natural transparency of virus particles, which are too small to reflect visible light. Designed with virologists from the University of Bristol and produced with professional glassblowers, sculptures in this series explore the tension between the destructive impacts of such diseases and the beauty of their forms. As one viewer wrote to the artist in 2009, “I can’t stop looking at it. Knowing that millions of those guys are in me, and will be a part of me for the rest of my life . . . It’s a very odd feeling seeing my enemy . . . and finding it so beautiful.”
Stamp Gallery, 2016