Wally Gilbert

Lives and works in Somerville, MA, USA

Artist statement

Wally Gilbert had a long career as a molecular biologist working on genes and DNA. He and Fred Sanger shared a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1980 for finding ways to decipher the order of chemical groups along a DNA molecule and hence to make it possible to read the genes. Those discoveries, and their follow-ups, drove the development of the last four decades and led to the working out of the Human Genome program and the current understanding of all organisms. Wally now works in Digital Art. He makes large images of fragments of the world, focusing on form, texture, and color, using a small digital camera. Wally sees the commonality between Science and Art in his work only as the expression of a common creative impulse, the drive to create something new, not yet known. In Science that drive is to create something new and true, true in the sense of experimental reproducibility by one’s peers. In Art that drive is to create something new and beautiful. The beauty is then in the eye of the beholder.

Artwork

• Blue Tree, 2023. Digital Dye Transfer on Aluminum
• Doors to Nowhere, 2015. Digital Dye Transfer Print on Aluminum
• Trees – Brie, 2015. Digital Dye Transfer Print on Aluminum
• Red Flower, 2022. Digital Dye Transfer Print on Aluminum
• Strong Light Red, 2021. Digital Dye Transfer Print on Aluminum
• Three Doors, 2002. Digital Dye Transfer Print on Aluminum
• Stripes – Red Orange, 2023. Digital Dye Transfer on Aluminum
• Yellow Strokes, 2023. Digital Dye Transfer Print on Aluminum