BIO5 center blends art, sciences
Creative works feed collaborative soul of institute
By Levi J. Long
ARIZONA DAILY STAR
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 07.13.2007
A walk through the BIO5 Institute will yield the usual sights — the high-tech labs, busy scientists, and offices devoted to bioscience research and technology.
Yet researchers, staff and guests wandering about the modern brick, glass and steel complex at the University of Arizona will find an art collection that's meant to inspire — and organically meld — into its surroundings.
"There's a wonderful interconnection between art and science," said Vicki Chandler, director of the BIO5 Institute, 1657 E. Helen St., which houses a collection by 10 internationally and nationally acclaimed artists. "Both are creative endeavors, though their mediums are obviously different. But there are a lot of scientists who play at being artists on the side, and there (are) artists interested in science and discovery. It's a wonderful interplay."
Dedicated in December, the UA BIO5 Thomas W. Keating Bioresearch Building and the UA College of Medicine's Medical Research Building house various offices, conference rooms and labs designed to encourage collaboration among scientists from different UA colleges, departments and disciplines.
That interaction happens largely through BIO5's mission and through the building's design, which features open spaces, colorful walls, and artwork inspired from elements of biology and bioscience.
The BIO5 Institute draws scientists from five UA colleges — agriculture, medicine, pharmacy, basic science and engineering — who work on creating lifesaving therapies and cures for diseases.
The art collection features 23 pieces, mostly paintings, by artists from the state: Dorothy Arnold, Jackson Boelts, Michael Holcomb, David T. Kessler, John Nelson, Barbara Rogers, Maurice J. Sevigny, Gregory West and Emmi Whitehorse.
A glass sculpture by Barry Entner is also part of the collection.
Plans include raising money for a multistory glass mobile to be created by artist Tom Philabaum. The mobile would conceptualize a series of biological images and be installed from the ceiling of the building's third floor.
"The art is meant to stimulate creativity inside the building," said BIO5 director Chandler, a researcher best known for her work in gene regulation. "It's an integral part of the building. People from the public and people (who work) in the building come by and say how wonderful it is to be surrounded by this art. . . . It gives researchers a special place to work."
Separated into two buildings, the complex is joined by enclosed walkways and an inverted white metal frame that soars over a shared courtyard.
Most of the Medical Research Building is dedicated to studying cancer, neuroscience, cardiovascular diseases and diabetes. The building features art pieces on loan from the Etherton Gallery, 135 S. Sixth Ave.
The BIO5 building, however, houses most of the art collection and provides work space for 300 researchers — 40 percent of whom are students.
Often lab spaces aren't designed to be aesthetically pleasing. They're housed in windowless, fluorescent-lighted rooms, not surrounded by artwork.
"It's nice to have a space where you can spend a huge amount of time in a beautiful space, a space that stimulates creativity," Chandler said.
Through private donations, the BIO5 art committee paid about $100,000 for the pieces, mostly obtained at discounted rates from the artists.
"When we first started, we looked at work that we wanted and belonged inside the building," said Cathy Morrison, chairwoman of the BIO5 art committee and manager of Bahti Indian Arts, 4280 N. Campbell Ave. "So often, we see public buildings with donated artwork that (artists, gallery owners or patrons) no longer had room for. They weren't interested in having the pieces, and the building ends up with a hodgepodge of art."
Instead, the committee sought out work that would represent the BIO5 mission.
"It's about five sciences coming together," Morrison said. "Everything going on in that building is about improving the future, improving science, people's health. We need to have artwork that depicts that."
The first piece that sprang to Morrison's mind for starting the collection was "Water Cure," a painting by Whitehorse, who also has two other paintings in the building.
The abstract painting is a four-panel installation, measuring 9-by-16 feet, and hangs inside a large conference room.
"In a sense, it's about my personal life, of going through some awful changes and then feeling like I was surfacing," said Whitehorse, a Navajo painter who lives in Santa Fe, N.M., and Tucson. She gave the piece from her own private collection. "It represents moving forward, toward the top of this weighty water. It represents a cure."
"And the fact that this building is for scientific studies and explorations, I thought it would be a good place for it to go."
Another painting, "Codon," represents "moving, changing, bonding and metamorphosizing together and building organic material," Whitehorse said.
"I've always looked at nature and my own work myopically," she said. "It's about trying to remind people of these organic changes . . . looking at the important building blocks of our world. I hope people see the beauty of this process and this change. Often we get too busy to recognize and see that organic process and that organic breakdown of organic matter."
● Contact reporter Levi J. Long at 573-4179 or llong@azstarnet.com.
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