The DNA of Art

Wyllie O Hagan is a pair of visual artists working in different media, from silkscreen paintings to film. They became fascinated by Rosalind Franklin, the woman who captured the first x-ray image of DNA, which immediately led to James Watson and Francis Crick’s discovery of the structure of DNA and their Nobel Prize in 1962.

In 2007, the pair of European artists Denise Wyllie and Clare O’Hagan were inspired by Franklin’s unfinished work and also wanted raise awareness of the disease that took her life.

At the age of 37, the British chemist Franklin died of ovarian cancer and was relegated to a footnote in Watson and Crick’s momentous achievement. Though without her crystallographic x-ray image, they would have struggled to figure out the exact double helix structure of the the genetic code.

While artist O’Hagan was deeply involved in their Rosalind Franklin: Discoveries in DNA project she was also diagnosed with ovarian cancer. Unlike Franklin, she beat the disease and still continues to paint and create art today.

She says, “When diagnosed with ovarian cancer, I really wanted to act out in anger, to make a big noise, to shout and scream and say, ‘This disease is just awful, it kills women, listen to what I am saying.’”

Since then the artists have continued to explore the intersection of art and science through additional collections, including a permanent exhibit called Transformations in Science and Art in the Royal Mint building in London. It is a large floor to ceiling banner that stretches 120 feet long and celebrates the life and work of the scientists in the Department of Oncology at University College London and the patients they’ve helped.

They also went on to further explore DNA through art with a series called Art Science DNA.

Wyllie O Hagan told a South Carolina newspaper, “Even without a deep knowledge of science, people respond to the aesthetics of the work.”

Beginning with their discovery of Rosalind Franklin’s forgotten place in science history, these two women stumbled into the world of science and expressed themselves through their artwork. They began by representating Franklin’s famous Photo 51 in vibrant colors, unlike the fuzzy x-ray original she took in 1952. Since that experiment Wyllie O Hagan has continued to demonstrate a keen ability to capture the beauty and magnificence of science.

“In my view all that is necessary for faith is the belief that by doing our best we shall succeed in our aims; the improvement of mankind.” — Rosalind Franklin