When art meets science
23 Jun 2020
Painting, sculpture, poetry, photography, and more ... students from all over New Zealand let their imaginations run riot, invited to express their love of science through art for the UC Art of Science competition 2020.
As art and science are two of his favourite subjects, Year 9 student Blake McCarthy couldn’t resist giving it a go – and was thrilled when his pixel art animation came second in the Interns (Years 8–10) section.
Blake’s work centres on the theme of transformation. “One of the things I like most about science is how different chemicals and substances react. I like seeing reactions and how things transform.”
It proved to be the perfect lockdown project as he painstakingly coloured each frame, eventually combining them to create a short animated sequence. “Pixel art’s a bit obscure, but I thought I could use it as an art form to represent science as a whole, with each pixel like an individual celI in a larger organism. I spent two days working on it, doing it frame by frame, colouring the pixels and changing each frame slightly so it looked like it was moving over time.”
Click here to see a video montage of UC Art of Science 2020 prize winners.