Beatrice Haines

My work focuses on relationships between the scientific and emotional, the grotesque and beautiful, the micro and macro and life and death. Objects that hold a personal resonance are raised to the status of relics despite their interpretation as mundane or disgusting by the outsider. Distortion of scale aids this metamorphosis; Microscopic fragments of human bone become space debris, a human gall stone becomes a meteorite and a collection of old tables become a cenotaph. The re-appropriation of such objects gives them new life and meaning. Our very being is questioned as internal tissues, chemicals and minerals in the body are likened to external matter in space.

Whilst taking on the importance of a relic, the subject is treated in a similar way to a scientific specimen and made to look sterile despite its emotional value. It is not only dehumanized in this way but makes us question our preconceived views of such things conditioned into us from infancy.

Much of my work is created by painstakingly constructing the image from many fragments. As well as a scientific aesthetic, I employ scientific methods. Electron microscopes measure the topography of the specimen by joining many images together. The space telescope Hubble also uses this process of collage to gather data and construct a complete image. This method allows me to accurately and intricately record an object. My ‘specimen’ is excessively and obsessively recorded. It is both cherished and violated in its study; a victim of voyeurism and the gaze.