19.10.21

Evolving Forms (with Attitude), egg tempera hand-made paints on Hahnemühle 500gsm paper. Today's Life Scientific with Jim Al-Khalili featured Professor Tim Spector, a renowned British epidemiologist. These evolving form paintings are informed partly by my previous university studies in biology and partly from a fascination with our microbiomes. I had read Ed Yong's 'I Contain Multitudes' a couple of years ago and was immediately hooked. So today's Life Scientific was hugely inspirational. Aside from Tim Spector's brilliant studies on identical twins (identical genetic clones) and how their microbiomes differed, there was a great deal of useful dietary advice that all of us would benefit from taking. For forty years I've been very mindful of the importance of a healthy diet but Tim Spector's research takes the latest scientific knowledge and hands us a silver platter (pardon the pun) of food advice. His recommendation is that we should all consume 30 different varieties of plant-based foods a week (this includes things like nuts, seeds, turmeric, herbs, and of course fruit and vegetables). Inspired by Tim Spector, today's evolving form painting conveys a 'being' made up of component cells, seed, legumes and bacteria, and it really does seem to convey 'Attitude'. I took this as an encouraging sign and have started a daily record score of all the different plant-based foods I eat. Scientists like Professor Tim Spector and Jim Al-Khalili really do shape our world for the better. The shapes in my own world are inspired by many subjects and people but so often revolve around science.