The work “The origin of life” by artist Kelly Arrontes was unveiled yesterday at Barcelona Science Park. The unveiling, presided over by the rector of the University of Barcelona, Joan Elias, brought together a hundred people and leading representatives from the academic, scientific and cultural world and from the Third Social Sector.

“The origin of life” is a wall painting over 125 metres long that adorns the walls of the corridor of Floor 0 that connects the PCB Cluster I and Cluster II buildings, where a large number of laboratories of companies and public research centres converge.

Neurons and eye cells are the core themes of the work, and flow freely in two markedly distinct spaces: “Due to my sensorial peculiarities as a blind artist, eye cells are very interesting to me. As for neurons, their plastic versatility attracts me, since they are very different from one another; they are the most diverse cells in nature”, reveals Kelly Arrontes who, with 9% vision, is legally blind and a member of ONCE (Spanish National Organisation for the Blind).

Taking minuscule electron microscopy images as a reference, Arrontes started working on metres and metres of wall that she had to cover, generating oversized images which, along with their volume and high visual impact, surround and amaze the observer. “Just like scientific research, parts of an idea and with each step you take, new pathways are opened which can lead to unexpected results. A moment arrives in which the work has a life of its own and, although I always know how to start, I can never imagine the end since the result is unpredictable. The question is: Do you play the game or not? In this case I decided to play, and in record time I achieved surprising results, even for me”, explains the artist.

Arrontes, a work with volumes that can also be touched as well as seen, so that anyone, regardless of their level of sight, can enjoy it and capture the emotions that I intended to convey in it”, affirms Kelly.

The predominant colours are red, yellow and orange in all their colour spectrums. Warm colours that contrast and, at the same time, complement her first artistic contribution at Barcelona Science Park, “Water is life”, a wall painting over 125 metres long that adorns the walls of the Floor -1 corridor which joins the Cluster I and Cluster II buildings, unveiled in April 2018.

The artist took on this new challenge when she won the 2nd PCB Artistic Contribution Competition, a public and anonymous contest sponsored by the Park to promote the interaction between art and science.

“I let myself go and even the short space of time in which I had to do it (20 days), played in my favour and became a drive for my creativity, and turned the whole thing into a challenge. A challenge in capital letters, like no other I had ever faced before. In my case, I’d say the true relevance of the work began when I accepted the challenge and completely left my comfort zone”, confesses the artist.

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