Countless artists have painted the human body using markedly different styles and techniques. However, most of the resulting paintings portray precisely the same thing: the exterior. In my series based on the principle of biological abstraction, I have chosen to depict the microscopic, the scientific and, most importantly, the interior.

The titles of the works are the technical names of the biological forms or processes that are depicted. Sand Dollar Egg shows the central part of an egg and pigmented areas on the surrounding plasma. Gastrula depicts the ball of single cells that results from the division of a sea urchin embryo. Erythrocytes shows an arrangement of red blood cells and Cytokinesis depicts the process of cell division. Cancer Cell I and Cancer Cell II are the largest paintings in the series. These works are the most meaningful to me personally: they were inspired by my mother's battle with cancer.

My Biological Abstraction series illustrates only one way in which art can be related to science. It is the combination of science and the aesthetic that drew me, at first, to consider a career in orthodontics, and then in art conservation. This connection between the two disciplines became apparent when I found that, while doing the required reading for my biology classes, I was much more interested in the aesthetic qualities of the pictures than the factual material in the books. It is my interconnected interest in the fields of biology and art that I wish this series to convey.