Welcome to Exploring the Invisible. I’m a scientist who produces outsider art. I don’t see my work as art because it’s created from pure and authentic creative impulses, and from a deep understanding of the science that I use. I have no formal art’s education, and I hope that my works are not tainted by ego, the desire for acclaim, and the need for social promotion. My goal is simple, to explore the inherent creativity of the natural world and to reveal its subtle, and usually hidden narratives, and above all to reveal its wonder. My hope is that my works will allow the interested observer to perceive biological phenomena that would otherwise be perpetually invisible, so that the hidden machinations of the natural world are brought to light. That’s all. Thank you for visiting!
Simon Park
A palette of living colors. Naturally pigmented bacteria isolated from a microgeographical walk in Birmingham. ©Simon Park
The very common soil bacterium Bacillus mycoides senses and responds to deformations and tensions in its growth environment. ©Simon Park
Plant Porn (series). Explicit and close up photographs of plant sexual organs. ©Simon Park
Bioluminescent Bacteria Art (series). ©Simon Park
The Bioluminescent Bacterial Light Lab. ©Simon Park
Some observations on the energy of rain: reconstructing a rain drop. ©Simon Park
Garden in Infrared: Photographs of garden taken with a thermal imaging camera. Leaves and flowers become like abstract paintings as differences in temperature become apparent, and Bumbles Bees can be seen as yellow spots of heat energy. ©Simon Park
The images above, at 100x magnification of a red rose petal, being cleared of their red pigment and gradually revealing the flowers cellular pigment. ©Simon Park
Fructose Crystals. ©Simon Park
Single colonies of Photobacterium phosphoreum HB imaged by their own bioluminescence. ©Simon Park
Pond Life. Some images of what I found in a drop of pond water using a DIC microscope at 100x magnification. Playing with representing the images as circles. ©Simon Park
BIO
Simon Park is a Senior Lecturer of Molecular Biology in The University of Surrey. His research interests are directed towards applying the techniques of molecular genetics and functional genomics to problems of specific relevance to food safety. In particular, it seeks to address those adaptive responses in foodborne bacterial pathogens that influence pathogenicity and survival in the food chain. In recent years much of his research has focused on Campylobacter jejuni, the leading cause of foodborne illness in the UK, and how this pathogen responds to nitric oxide. Driven by his knowledge from the field of Biology, he explores the boundaries between the biological forms and art.
