Disha Shetty

This digital piece combines photographic images and observational sketches and was inspired by Leonardo Da Vinci’s anatomical sketches, in which he presented skeletal features with delicate lines that often resembled the delicacy of plants – especially flower stems and roots. His work also had the slightly worn out, old look due to the brown pages. I tried to recreate this mood through slightly duller images and neutralising vibrant colours. I also gave a modernised feel to the piece by adding the white border, to subvert how diagrams are usually drawn in a traditional way and focussed on realism and detail rather than aesthetic. Additionally, I felt that having the hand placed on top of the border gave the piece a three dimensional quality by making it seem as thought the hand was reaching in from outside the frame. With this project I aimed to combine nature with the human form to beautify science, which is a topic that is often seen as unimaginative, technical and/or boring, by portraying a scientific diagram and its features using the vitality of natural structures.