Reprinted from the Wellcome Trust's online exhibit:
Before Birth: The Art and Science of Life in the Womb

Art for Science's Sake
(Posted January 8, 1999 · Issue 45)

Negev Doppler
by Mark Hanson
Oil, acrylic and powdered pumice; © 1996
From Before Birth: The Art and Science of Life in the Womb
Courtesy of the Wellcome Trust

"At the time I was painting this picture, my laboratory work was focused on the interpretation of ultrasound data (Doppler waveforms) relating to fetal blood circulation. The painting is about fixing a process and capturing a dynamic state. It started on a visit to Jerusalem, a city where the juxtaposition of diverse beliefs and interpretations is so evident. Then I travelled south, into the Negev desert, where it was the detail of the colours, rather than the outlines and silhouettes of lowlands and hills, that conveyed ideas about the process of change."
(Mark Hanson)

Science for Art's Sake

From Before Birth: The Art and Science of Life in the Womb
Courtesy of the Wellcome Trust

The health of a growing fetus depends on its blood flow, which can be studied using an ultrasound Doppler technique - similar to the method by which police check car speeds. A computer calculates the speed of blood flow, and the Doppler waveform is displayed as a colour-coded trace, which captures the dynamic process of blood flow as a two-dimensional image. The further task of determining the volume of blood flowing by interpreting detailed aspects of the waveform is the subject of much research.

The Wellcome Trust houses exhibitions in three separate sites. ‘Science for Life’ is a permanent interactive exhibition about biomedical research, the people who work in it, and how their work is supported. A series of temporary exhibitions examining the intersection of contemporary medicine and art is also mounted in the Two10 Gallery. Two or three exhibitions are also mounted each year in the History of Medicine Gallery.

Acute stroke, speech arrest, MR-PD from The Whole Brain Atlas: "My mind gallops in a tundra..." by Ellen Driscoll and Jim Richardson; (Issue 39 · posted October 2, 1998)
Cytochrome C by Irving Geis: Dreamtime Heroes of the Great Sandy Desert by Tjumpo Tjapanangk; (Issue 37 · posted September 4, 1998)
DNA Phase Transition by Michael W. Davidson: A Portrait of DNA by Roger Berry; (Issue 35 · posted July 24, 1998)
Mouse fibroblasts (160x), Fluorescence by Barbara A. Danowski: Lost Referential by LP Demers & Bill Vorn; (Issue 33 · posted June 23, 1998)
Drug molecules from Gayle Gross de Nunez and SAVANTES: Traveler on the Yellow Wave by William S. Burroughs; (Issue 30 · posted May 29, 1998)
Frog Reconstructions from The Whole Frog Project: Desert Iguana by Carol Selter; (Issue 28 · posted April 17, 1998)
Images from Nature,: an illustrated catalog from London's Natural History Museum; (Issue 25 · posted February 20, 1998)
Breath Taken: The Landscape & Biography of Asbestos,: an exhibition by Bill Ravanesi; (Issue 24 · posted January 30, 1998)
Doomsday by Ulla Godwin: Excerpt from Metropolis by Fritz Lang; (Issue 21 · posted December 5, 1997)
Open Heart Surgery Movie from The Franklin Institute Science Museum: Donor Lymph Nodes by Max Aguilera-Hellweg; (Issue 20 · posted November 14, 1997)
Banana Exploding by Andrew Davidhazy, and: Nature Reborn by Ming Fay; (Issue 18 · posted October 17, 1997)
Lincoln by Bela Julesz and Leon Harmon, and: Keith/four times by Chuck Close; (Issue 17 · posted October 2, 1997)
Human, full body scan by Meditherm, and: Recollections by Ed Tannenbaum; (Issue 16 · posted September 19, 1997)
Praying Mantis by Kenneth J. Stein, and: StareCase by Alan Dorin; (Issue 15 · posted September 5, 1997)