“It’s hard to tell the story if you don’t have a stunning image to back it up” – Ray Villard, public relations director for the Hubble Space Telescope project 

In this project I aim to explore the complexity of life at a cellular level through photography. I have chosen this topic as the cell’s ability to carry out its function and support life, despite us being completely unaware of its activities always fascinated me. I find it riveting how the microcosmic substructures that make up a human being exist in a completely different stream of consciousness independent of and unaffected by our conscious thought. Although the ability of willpower to alter the body is well known (as the placebo effect) there are things we cannot simply influence. A heart will not stop beating when you ask it to, and a cell will not divide because you told it to. There is a certain type of beauty in that. Mystical or religious if you will. The more I study the complexity of the human body the more my conviction shifts to believing it was not simply a series of coincident that lead to the development of life on earth. It was not a case of chance but rather a carefully thought-out project, designed by an architect wielding knowledge much greater than what we as humans could ever wish to understand. To illustrate the complexity of the cellular structure in the simplest possible manner I will be using modelling clay to create replicas of organelles. I am using Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks as inspiration since I have always admired the way he combines science with art. Another artist who influences my work is Anna Atkins who documented algae and plants through cyanotype photography. Finally, I will draw inspiration from Gary Fabian Miller who created camera-less photographs exploring the properties of light and time, applying Johannes Itten’s colour theory. I hope to create a series of images that are both artistic and informative and challenge a viewer to contemplate the wonders we are so blind to see going about everyday life.