Laura Splan: Hypertelic
RL Window
RYAN LEE Gallery
New York, NY
March 13 – May 31, 2025
RYAN LEE Gallery is pleased to present Hypertelic by Laura Splan, on view in RLWindow. These symmetrical, kaleidoscopic animations from her Unraveling series were created using molecular visualization software and SARS spike protein models. The animations show proteins folding into the exact molecular structure that is necessary for them to function properly. In this case, spike proteins are of particular interest to researchers due to the role they play in infection and antibody reception.
Splan embraces a posthuman approach, seeking to upset anthropocentrism and complicate our interpretation of our place in the interconnected ecosystem. In this project, like much of her work, Splan mediates nature through technology, examining the ways in which humans understand and interact with the natural world that surrounds us. Even though these animations are a realistic view of protein structures, they are still a technological representation of viruses – our diagrammatic view of them is several steps removed from what they actually look like.
What does it mean to portray a serious, sometimes deadly virus in a beautiful way? Splan seeks to captivate the viewer with pleasing and mesmerizing images so that they are enticed to spend more time with this conceptually layered work. The act of unraveling a protein is also a gesture that makes it unable to cause disease, injecting a tinge of hope and healing with a performatively disruptive process. Splan often works with textiles in her practice, and draws a connection between the meditative state of mind invoked by watching these repetitive animations and the soothing experience of needlework crafts.
RYAN LEE Gallery is pleased to present Hypertelic by Laura Splan, on view in RLWindow. These symmetrical, kaleidoscopic animations from her Unraveling series were created using molecular visualization software and SARS spike protein models. The animations show proteins folding into the exact molecular structure that is necessary for them to function properly. In this case, spike proteins are of particular interest to researchers due to the role they play in infection and antibody reception.
Splan embraces a posthuman approach, seeking to upset anthropocentrism and complicate our interpretation of our place in the interconnected ecosystem. In this project, like much of her work, Splan mediates nature through technology, examining the ways in which humans understand and interact with the natural world that surrounds us. Even though these animations are a realistic view of protein structures, they are still a technological representation of viruses – our diagrammatic view of them is several steps removed from what they actually look like.
What does it mean to portray a serious, sometimes deadly virus in a beautiful way? Splan seeks to captivate the viewer with pleasing and mesmerizing images so that they are enticed to spend more time with this conceptually layered work. The act of unraveling a protein is also a gesture that makes it unable to cause disease, injecting a tinge of hope and healing with a performatively disruptive process. Splan often works with textiles in her practice, and draws a connection between the meditative state of mind invoked by watching these repetitive animations and the soothing experience of needlework crafts.
...Laura Splan spent three months in 2020 collaborating with Integral Molecular scientists Dr. Benjamin Doranz and Dr. Edgar Davidson over Zoom to produce her series...created using Pymol to visualize intricate molecular models of SARS-CoV-2. Splan explains that “by using the specialized features of the software in unconventional ways, I unravel and distort the folded structure of the coronavirus spike protein. I playfully manipulate the folded forms...
...Interdisciplinarity is the foundation on which artist Laura Splan conceives her work...Through her practice, science is moved out of the laboratories while keeping its axioms and experiments present...A number of its mechanisms are paralleled with the cultural dynamics that inhabit our everyday lives, putting a magnifying glass on the interconnections that exist between diverse fields of knowledge...
…While the complex, and often alienating science behind the pandemic has inundated the globe over the past year, artist laura splan dove into the study of virus structures to explore the interconnectedness between cultural and biological systems…
…Laura Splan’s "Unraveling"...is another animation, using molecular visualization software and SARS-CoV-2 structures to present mobile fractals that made me want to learn more about COVID’s biological formation...
...Looking at these hypnotizing structures is a moment of ephemeral divinity; a tiny glimpse into the dangerous beauty of the world of the virus...
...surprisingly beautiful...That Splan’s erudite aestheticization of COVID-19 can enchant as much as it does is baffling...
...With the coronavirus outbreak, people worldwide have become preoccupied with a threat so physically small that it can’t be seen. The invisible world of viruses has long fascinated multi-media artist Laura Splan, who is artist in residence at a biotech lab...
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