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Alex Snow

What was the inspiration behind your artwork?

I spend my time trying to get proteins to form crystals and diffract in an X-ray, and to me the entire process is already a kind of art. Everything from the crystals to the diffraction images to the final 3D reconstruction is beautiful. My goal was to take that scientific beauty and turn it into something everyone could enjoy. Plus I’d been watching a flower sculpture show and wanted to make a protein into a garden!

What do you see as the similarity between science and art? Why is science-art important in today's society?

To me they’re the same thing. Science isn’t (entirely) the cold, calculated thing people think it is. The way that things come together, and the way nature can answer the questions we ask if we look hard enough and see the patterns is to be more beautiful and more artful than anything we have ever made. I wish more people saw that and appreciated the beauty of the world around them. That’s something science can give them.

Get to know the artist!

Hi! I'm Alex, and I'm a PhD student working at the university of York. I specialize in protein X-ray crystallography.

Get in touch!

Follow Alex on Twitter: @Alex_Sn0w


Behind the scenes

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