Artistic infection: hand cut paper microbes and pathogens

We’re always in contact with microbes, but we’re not always happy about it. However, I have a feeling that these hand-cut microbes are an exception.

Artist Rogan Brown just completed work on his latest paper artwork titled Outbreak, a piece he describes as an exploration “of the microbiological sublime.”

It took him over four months to develop these intricate sculptures, cutting them entirely from paper. The goal was to create a representation of microbes, pathogens and neurons. But why this fascination ?

“My work is an exploration and re-presentation of natural organic forms both mineral and vegetal. I look for patterns and repeated motifs that run through natural phenomena at different scales, from the microscopic to the macroscopic, from individual cells to large scale geological formations.”

“I am inspired in part by the tradition of scientific drawing and model making, and particularly the work of artist-scientists such as Ernst Haeckel. But although my approach involves careful observation and detailed “scientific” preparatory drawings these are always superseded by the work of the imagination; everything has to be refracted through the prism of the imagination, estranged and in some way transformed.”, the artist explains on his website.