Name: Sofía Polcowñuk
Which came first in your life, the science or the art?
As a young girl, I had a strong influence from both. My parents are artisans, so the artistic part was always there since I was very little, but on the other hand, they also studied biology, so my house was a place where art and science merged.
However, for my career, I decided to go for science, I studied Biology and got my PhD. 3 years ago.
Which sciences relate to your art practice?
In my artwork, I’m inspired by nature, by the organisms I work with. Biology is my source of creativity and new ideas.
What materials do you use to create your artworks?
I use mainly pencil and watercolour. Because the watercolour technique is very versatile, I can play with other elements to create effects and different ways of blending the colours.
Artwork/Exhibition you are most proud of:
Recently I have had the opportunity to present my artwork at Pint of Science, Creative Reactions. It was the first time showing my work at an exhibition, so I was very happy to see the reaction of the people and to show this part of myself.
Which scientists and/or artists inspire and/or have influenced you?
I’ve been always fascinated by naturalistic illustrations, like the ones from Linnaeus and Darwin. I always admired the level of detail, the colours, and the idea of the visual communication behind their drawings and paintings.
Nowadays scientific and medical illustrators show me the world of digital art. There are great examples of very talented illustrators that also inspire me to learn more about this field.
SciArt is an emerging term related to combining art and science. How would you define it?
For me, SciArt refers to the use of artistic media, creativity, and visual tools to communicate science. It’s the place where the beauty of the scientific world can be expressed and seen from a different perspective. Even if the term is new, I think that artistic representations of science were, at least for biology, at the beginning of it, where the observation and the accurate representation of the living world were very important to describe and communicate discoveries.
For more by Sofía Polcowñuk, visit her Instagram, and LinkedIn.
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Featured image: Female Drosophila by Sofía Polcowñuk
All images courtesy of the artist.
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