Invisible Portraits
Invisible Portraits

Diatom pendant

Diatoms are beautiful algae that live in carefully constructed glass houses called frustules that bear distinctive patterns of small holes in radial or bilateral symmetry.

Invisible Portraits

Diatom bracelet

The diatom frustule is represented in a larger form in this bracelet.

Invisible Portraits

Euglena pendant

Euglena is a common alga that you may see in bright green pond water, but is also distinctive for its complex coat made up of numerous strips that slide between one another to change its shape.

Invisible Portraits

Virus pendant

Viruses outnumber cells manyfold and push our definition of ‘life’. Some viruses are protected by a simple capsid, or protein shell, but others make use of complex geometric shapes, like this icosahedron.

Invisible Portraits

Amoeba bracelet

Amoebae are probably the most easily recognised of the microbial forms. This amoeba warps around the wrist.

Invisible Portraits

"I think" pendant

“I think” in Morse code using oak and wenge surrounded by maple.

This series of pieces represents a key moment in the history of biology when Charles Darwin wrote “I think” and sketched an iconic tree in his notebook, capturing the idea of evolutionary relatedness. Here, the words “I think” are hidden in the patterns of wood using Morse code and binary.

Invisible Portraits

"I think" pendant

“I think” in binary code.

This series of pieces represents a key moment in the history of biology when Charles Darwin wrote “I think” and sketched an iconic tree in his notebook, capturing the idea of evolutionary relatedness. Here, the words “I think” are hidden in the patterns of wood using Morse code and binary.

Invisible Portraits

Ciliate cytoskelton pendant

Sleigh diagram of the ciliate cytoskeleton using cherry, birch, wenge, and wire.

This series of pieces represent structural complexity. Electron microscopist Michael Sleigh realized that complicated three dimensional subcellular structures, or the cytoskeleton, in distantly related microbes could be compared by conceptually transforming them to simple two-dimensional shorthand, since called Sleigh diagrams.

Invisible Portraits

Kelp cytoskelton pendant

Sleigh diagram of the kelp cytoskeleton using walnut, birch, and wire.

This series of pieces represent structural complexity. Electron microscopist Michael Sleigh realized that complicated three dimensional subcellular structures, or the cytoskeleton, in distantly related microbes could be compared by conceptually transforming them to simple two-dimensional shorthand, since called Sleigh diagrams.

Invisible Portraits

Oomycete cytoskelton pendant

Sleigh diagram of the oomycete cytoskeleton using walnut, birch, and wire.

This series of pieces represent structural complexity. Electron microscopist Michael Sleigh realized that complicated three dimensional subcellular structures, or the cytoskeleton, in distantly related microbes could be compared by conceptually transforming them to simple two-dimensional shorthand, since called Sleigh diagrams.

Invisible Portraits

DNA pendant

Human DNA barcode in four woods surrounded by walnut.

This piece represents the ultimate biological code, that of DNA. The series of four different woods, each one of the four nucleotide ‘letters’, spells out part of the universal DNA ‘barcode’ for humans, a fragment of the mitochondrial CO1 gene. The DNA barcode is designed to distinguish all life, and over the region shown here humans and chimpanzees are identical but for a single letter, emphasizing our close relationship.