Chemistry and Visual Arts; a challenging and fascinating academic path

Lauren DiVito is a 4th year student in a combined major of chemistry and visual arts, a unique program created for her to suit her two seemingly opposite interests. Initially in her first year, she treated the two subjects as separate entities assuming they had no business overlapping. However, she soon learned that one cannot survive without the other, or rather, she as an artist cannot survive without the scientist, nor the scientist without the artist. The meaning of her artwork as well as the medium varies as her two roles grow and change representing both the frustrations as well as joys of the combined program. It is an evolution, a constant struggle between artist and scientist- the breaking down of a barrier that seems to so often divide the two worlds from one another and allowing them to coexist. Recently, Lauren to participate in the Exposure to Science exhibition in the Lebel building featuring science-based art. She is seen here in front of one of her pieces entitled Components of a Whole which plays on the notion of photography being both a science and an art. The process involved collecting specimens, breaking them up into their individual components under microscope, and recombining them using artistic processes into interesting, abstract compositions that show the beauty of the mundane aspects of life.