INTERNATIONAL
Immy Smith
Neuroscience,
Illustration
& Comics
featured member
By Julia Buntaine
Editor-in-Chief
Immy Smith, an interdisciplinary
artist based in the U.K., creates comics,
illustrations, collages, and drawings based
on a variety of topics inspired by the forms
and functions of cellular biology. After
earning her PhD in neuroscience, Smith
explored her passion for the biology of
the brain in researching plant-derived
medicines. Beginning as small comics meant
to lighten the mood of the serious research
environment of her lab, Smith’s sciencebased art quickly evolved as a practice
of its own. Now, calling herself a ‘former
neuroscientist’, Smith expresses her passion for
science through the medium of art in order to
connect with and inspire a larger lay audience.
As it does for many science-based artists,
bridging the divide between art and science has
always come naturally to Smith. As she put it
in an email to SciArt in America, “I was raised
to investigate the world with a paintbrush in
one hand, and a cheap junior microscope in
the other!” Concerned with questions about
what life is like on the cellular level, Smith
anthropomorphizes her cellular subjects in
a playfully didactic manner. When talking
with us about her work, she wrote, “My aim
is to extend and share biological stories … As
an artist, I can ask a brain cell, ‘what are you
thinking?’” Using humor as a tool, Smith also
relays the daily serendipity, triumphs, and
accidents that scientists experience daily.
10
Neuroinflammation-memory (2014). Color pencil and
micron pen. Image courtesy of the artist.
In addition to her own practice, Smith is the
organizer of Imagining Science, a collective
of artists who all have “a foot in science,”
collaborating and exhibiting together regularly.
As the organizer, Smith said she “want[s] more
people to understand that artists can actively
contribute in science, and scientists can
contribute to the creation of imaginative art.”
Continuing, she said, “By imaginative, we mean
original, exploratory works; that’s part of what
we aim to convey. Too often the word ‘SciArt’ is
associated with just enlarging a micrograph and
calling it art. It’s not, it’s so much more
than that.”
You can view more of Immy Smith’s work on her
website: http://www.redbubble.com/people/immy/
portfolio. Read more about Imagining Science at:
www.imaginingscience.com
SciArt in America October 2014