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 14.12.2018

Kelly versus Kelly

Having completed the work “Water is Life”, artist Kelly Arrontes has started her second artistic intervention at Barcelona Science Park, “The Origin of Life”, a mural 125 metres long which is expected to take 20 days to finish. The artist, who has just 9% of vision and is a member of ONCE, has taken up this new challenge after winning the second PCB Artistic Intervention Competition, a public and anonymous contest held by the park to promote interaction between art and science.

 

Kelly Arrontes has started a new artistic intervention at Barcelona Science Park (PCB). The mural measuring over 125 metres long will run along the corridor of Floor 0, which connects the Cluster I and Cluster II buildings, where a large number of company laboratories and public research centres come together.

The cell, as the origin of life, is the central theme of the work. “It will be a composition in which my own vision of the eye neurones and cells are represented in two clearly differentiated spaces. The main idea is to make the smallest… the biggest; from miniscule images of electronic microscopy… creating a mural of these dimensions. Due to my sensory peculiarities, I find eye cells very interesting. As for neurons, I am attracted by their plastic versatility, as they are very different from one to the other; they are the most diverse cells in nature. This is the benchmark, but the work may acquire ‘a life of its own’ as the project gets underway… The artistic production has many parallels with the scientific method. Parts of an idea, but each step you take opens up new pathways which can lead, initially, to surprising results”, says Arrontes.

The acrylic-based composition combines paint with the texture and embossments made with tissue paper. “It is the Arrontes signature. All of my works are created to be touched, in solidarity with my collection… I want anyone, regardless of their state of vision, to be able to enjoy them and capture the emotions that I wanted to convey”, reveals the artist who, with 9% vision, is legally blind and a member of ONCE.

The predominant colours are red, yellow and orange in all of their chromatic ranges. Warm colours that contrast with her first mural “Water is Life”, but at the same time, complement it. “When executing this second work I aim to enhance the fusion of the concepts of Art and Science, and create an integral, current and innovative project, just as in biotechnology”, explains the artist.

“The Origin of Life” was the winning proposal of the second Artistic Intervention Competition of Barcelona Science Park by unanimous decision of the judges, composed of different experts from around world in science, communications and the visual arts.

“Art and science, the artist and investigator share values, passions and methodology. We have science of excellence at the park and we work to dedicate more spaces to art. Kelly faces a twofold challenge, reflecting biotechnology through her artistic vision on a wall 125 meters long and exceed herself and the magnificent work “Water is Life”, which she created at the beginning of the year. We have very high expectations that we’re sure she will surpass”, says Maria Terrades, General Director of Barcelona Science Park.

Art and science, by PCB

“The Origin of Life” is the fourth initiative by which the Barcelona Science Park aims to promote interaction between art and science.

In April, Kelly Arrontes completed her first intervention at the park, “Water is life”, a mural over 125 meters long which runs along the corridor that connects the Cluster I and Cluster II buildings. The work has water as its backbone, faithful to the artist’s expressionist abstract style. The mural’s four parts represent the symbiosis between the different physical-chemical states of water and the artist’s different moods according to the fluctuations of her visual acuity.

In 2014 “El Jardí del Parc” (The Park´s Garden) was inaugurated as a leisure space for the PCB community in which the artist Núria Mora recreates a plastic proposal that works with the space’s geometrics and its surroundings, combining the simplicity of abstract shapes and flat volumes with a pallet of colours made by the artist herself.

In 2015, Anna Taratiel, one of the most prominent representatives of the global street art movement, completed her artistic intervention on a central corridor that connects the Cluster I and Cluster II buildings, a pictorial and avant-garde composition more than 80 metres long, featuring geometric shapes of high visual impact which play with the chromatic saturation to offer unusual perspectives in two or three dimensions.