Over the past four decades, I`ve adventured in the frontiers of aesthetics that combine Art and Science integrating their methods of creative inquiry and discovery with this expressed purpose: To explore the process of ArtScience, which connects virtually all areas of human endeavor, cultivating creativity by stimulating innovative thinking in all its myriad forms, functions and expressions.

For me, Art is not only what we make; it`s also what we make of it. Art encompasses All Representations of Thought: from the poetic gestures of dancers to the symbolic models of chemists; from napkin sketches to rigorous proofs in pure math; from Ahas! we utter when breakthroughs occur to technological marvels we create when we collaboratively harness our creative genius; from our intangible reflections on life to our tangible responses to all the phenomenal things nature shares with us every moment of every day deepening our appreciation for the world around us and within us.

Art mirrors life. Life mirrors art. Science enables us to see how this mirror reflects and informs our sense of reality in the mind in every way imaginable.

Through art we understand science. Through science we understand nature. Through nature we understand how we can create what we envision.

My work explores the creative potential of human beings and nature alike. Each work of art poses three premises: The brain is what the brain creates; its workings reflect the workings of all its creations; to understand how our creations come to be, we need to further explore how our minds work in relation to nature.

These metaphorical artworks aim to inspire us to see the brain`s handiwork in all its creations. The neural-like textures and colors in these paintings represent networks of neurons involved in generating ideas, stimulating intuitions and testing theories about the nature of creativity. They interpret nature as one interconnected creative process that links everything in indescribable ways with countless purposes.

The impressionistic paintings and symbolic sculptures interpret the actions of our minds, which use many ways and means to connect everything through innovative thinking; that is, creating new meanings and purposes for all things.

Like every symbol-making creature, I use an all-purpose creative process to connect and transform all information (data, knowledge, ideas, wisdom, experiences) in personally meaningful and useful ways. I call this universal process of creative and critical thinking Metaphorming.

Dimensions: 72 in. x 152 in.

Medium: mixed media on synthetic canvas

Date: 2011-12

With a burst of creative energy, nanomaterials take shape; some as small as a stand of DNA merely 2 nm wide. These tiniest human-made functional structures billionths of a meter (10^-9) miraculously grow into nanocrystals, or nanowires, or nanotubes, or nanosheets, or some unique combinations of these four building blocks of NanoWorld. This growth is directed by imaginative nanochemists, materials scientists and engineers working collaboratively to realize their boldest goals: creating nanostructures with functions that work to improve a world of technological innovations, such as solar cells, batteries, energy devices and climate control systems, computers, advanced medicines and mechanisms for maintaining our personal health and managing the wellness of global environments we share everyday.

I`m fascinated by the boundless beauty of the creative process synthesizing and forming nanomaterials that can help create a sustainable future. These nano-related innovations manifest the bold ingenuity of human creativity that naturally unites art-science-technology, sparking countless creative collaborations.

Dimensions: 72 x 142 inches (1,828,800,000 nm x 3,606,800,000 nm)

Medium: Mixed media on synthetic canvas

Date: 2011-13

This metaphorical art envisions what nature makes and what we make of nature on the nanoscale. It explores the creative process of combining six nano-concepts (size, shape, surface, self-assembly, degree of imperfection, and utility (Ozin and Cademartiri, Concepts in Nanochemistry, VCH-Wiley, 2009) to form all-purpose nanomaterials that increase the effectiveness of various technological innovations, including: solar cells, batteries, fuel cells, light emitting diodes, computers, and biomedical devices. Each nano-related innovation manifests the ingenuity of human creativity born from cross-disciplinary collaborations. Each highlights the fact that the human brain, our creative engine of invention and innovation, underlies all advancements in the interconnected fields of Art, Nanoscience and Neuroscience.

Dimensions: 72 in. x 142 in. (1,828,800,000 nm x 3,606,800,000 nm)

Medium: mixed media on synthetic canvas

Date: 2011-13

This neuro-impressionistic painting delves into the creative process of designing and synthesizing multi-purpose nanocrystals, nanowires, nanosheets, and nanotubes.

The painting highlights what scanning electron microscopes cannot see unaided by imagination. It glimpses the hidden phenomena behind the surfaces of physical reality, offering new aesthetic experiences that can enhance our understanding of nature.

Emerging from an imaginary Book of Nature, which takes centerstage in this brain-based painting, is a big concept that gives form to a new Periodic Table of Nanomaterials and Nanomaterials Genome. With this practical, powerful tool, nanoscientists and engineers could create a potentially infinite number of nanomaterials that could be combined and built to serve a need or solve a specific problem. Many metaphorms were created to visualize the possibilities and limitations of a Nanomaterials Genome that would be useful for many industries and technological innovations (Qian et al., 2015).

Dimensions: 72 x 152 inches (1,828,800,000 nm x 3,861,000,000 nm)

Medium: mixed media on synthetic canvas

Date: 2011-12

This art explores how nanomaterials are synthesized from the bottom up from atom to atom clusters to nanomaterials to materials (Cademartiri and Ozin, Concepts in Nanochemistry, VCH-Wiley, 2009) and fabricated from the top down. It suggests how intermediate forms of matter are shaped by various organizational principles, such as self-assembly, co-assembly, directed [templated] assembly, hierarchical assembly (Cademartiri and Ozin, Concepts in Nanochemistry, VCH-Wiley, 2009). The myriad combinations of these principles provide numerous nano-devices that can be applied to solving our most urgent global problems involving climate change. This art offers aesthetic experiences that can catalyze and cultivate innovative thinking.

There`s a deep connection between the scientific process of building the tiniest human-made structures and my artistic process of creating large-scale, continuous monotype prints and paintings, some measuring 12ft. x 200ft. I use a similar process to paint and sculpt the textural surfaces; however, I embrace unpredictability and uncertainty differently than nanochemists, who use centrifugation or evaporation induced self-assembly to organize colloids into nanocrystals, nanowires, nanosheets, and nanotubes.

What I do on the macroscopic scale, nanochemists do on the nanoscale with their “template” system. A template can be a nanostructure (solid, liquid, or gaseous), which can be used to direct the assembly of a nanostructure. A droplet can be used as a template. A glass slide on which you deposit a film of nanocrystals can be considered a template. A bubble in a liquid can be used as a template” (Cademartiri and Ozin, Concepts in Nanochemistry, VCH-Wiley, 2009; p. 61).

A colony of nanowires sprouts from a cluster of silicon atoms. They quickly evolve into novel nano-devices for enhancing the efficiency and performance of many advanced technologies. One device may be used in solar collectors and another for controlling global climate change (e.g., Ultra-Black PC@SiNW Hybrid Materials for Broadband Ambient CO2 Reduction, conceived and developed by Ozin et al., 2015). These innovative climate devices can be designed to absorb a broader range of light in the Electromagnetic Spectrum (from infrared to ultraviolet), leveraging insights gained from studying the way plants and other lifeforms process light and heat.

Art enables us to discover new ways and means of expressing our personal truths. Science enables us to seek-and-see truths through empirical and theoretical studies. ArtScience provides countless opportunities for exploring both possibilities.

…It is time to realize that what science does best is create art, and what art does best is envision new science, writes the UCLA theoretical physicist, Dr. Fred Alan Wolf, author of Taking The Quantum Leap. That insightful reflection resonates with all my art.

Synthesizing Nature’s Nanotubes

Nanotubes-3

Nanotubes-4

Nanotubes-2

Nanotubes-1

The symbolic imagery represent my creative inquiries into the potentially infinite meanings and implications of nature`s connectivity. They suggest how all things may be interconnected by nature: from infinitesimally tiny strands of subatomic particles to clusters of stellar matter to human neural tissue to the multilayered concepts of cities, cultures and civilizations born from our collective brains.

One of the great joys in creating these photosculptures is experiencing those thrilling, unpredictable aesthetic accidents that underscore most original discoveries. Albert Szent-Györgyi, the 1937 Nobel Prize-winner in Physiology or Medicine, once noted: A discovery is said to be an accident meeting a prepared mind. My mind is an R&D Lab always open to wonder!

Before I ever started thinking about nanoscience, I made these sculptures which, later, prepared my mind to discover and learn how nanomaterials and nano-devices can be applied to carbon-neutral CO2-to-Fuel technology (Ozin et al., 2015) that serve our global energy needs.