SuperCellular: Carolyn Healy & John Phillips

SuperCellular

A new site-specific immersive art gallery experience
by Carolyn Healy and John JH Phillips

January 30 - March 25, 2023
Opening Reception: February 2, 5-7 pm

GLASSBORO, NJ—Rowan University Art Gallery is pleased to present SuperCellular, a new collaborative site-specific immersive art gallery experience by Carolyn Healy and John JH Phillips. Debuting on January 30, the exhibition will be on view through March 25, 2023 with an opening reception and artist’s talk on February 2, from 5-7 pm. The talk begins at 5:30 pm.

SuperCellular combines sculpture, light, sound, and moving imagery as a reflection of the astonishing and almost incomprehensible density and activity of the chemical molecules in our bodies. Inspired by neuroscience, cellular biology, and genetics— topics extensively read and watched by the artists during the COVID-19 pandemic—the installation contemplates the complexities and intricacies of living processes and the mysteries of cellular interactions.

Visitors will enter the installation through a short corridor and walk into a darkened room where every section, ceiling to floor, is filled with sculpture, video, and sound. Interacting with projections and sculptures, as well as soundscapes composed from over 450 computer sound files, viewers will be immersed in an active buzzing aural environment.

The impact of the overlapping projections and three-dimensional sculptures are in response to the wonders of cellular biology. As the artists explain, “like many others during the height of COVID, we became fascinated by the workings of the human body.”

“We Sapiens have used art for millennia to express the ineffable, to try to understand what makes us, us. We hope visitors to this exhibit, in bringing their own imagination and knowledge to the experience of the artwork, will find new opportunities to think about the microscopic mysteries of life,” said Healy and Phillips.

The imagery featured in SuperCellular is inspired by the immense number of complex actions performed by the trillions of molecules that make up living organisms. Some of the images are reminiscent of neuron cells, while others are reflective of membranes and molecules interacting in transparent globes. Overall, the objects, video, sound, and sculpture are abstracted organic imagery meant to be a reflection of the marvel and intricacies of living processes.