Get to know the artist

1. How long have you been creating science art? 

I have been creating art since I was 7 years old. However, it was not until high school that I started integrating scientific themes into my work — like making visual props or scientific models at science fairs. This microuniverse story is my first fully dedicated science art piece, which took me over 20 hours to complete. 

2. How did you choose the color palette for the piece? 

Blue and green are my lucky colors, so I naturally gravitated towards them. And they did bring me luck! Beyond that, I was inspired by Danny Thomas’s dream that “no child should die in the dawn of life.” I wanted my palette to convey that sense of dawn - refreshing in the blend of blue and green, vital with touches of yellow-orange, and enchanting through hints of neon pink. 

About the art on the Research home page: 

In the glow of dawn, each bubble magnifies a vivid phenomenon of life, such as translation, phagocytosis, cell lysis, etc. When two bubbles overlap, their worlds intertwine, revealing the delicate interactions within these microuniverses. This painting also captures my journey in science, spanning the fields of chemistry and biology. 

3. How did you come up with the idea of using bubbles to isolate processes and overlapping bubbles to illustrate interaction? 

When I first read the theme, Illustrating the Stories of Science, the word “stories” really stuck in my head. I had so many ideas and inspirations, and I didn’t want to leave anything out. I thought about sci-fi concepts at first like metauniverse, and, since we are in a children’s research hospital, I thought of something that feels dreamy, child-like, and reflective. The idea of bubbles came naturally to me. It was the ideal way to show multiple stories at once, while maintaining an imaginative vibe for science art.  

4. The caption of your artwork mentioned that this painting captures your journey in science. Can you elaborate on that? 

This painting highlights the story of my scientific journey: from an undergraduate studying metalloproteins in Salmonella, to an intern in the Blair lab (Department of Chemical Biology and Therapeutics) focusing on antibiotic discovery using high-throughput chemistry, to my current role as a researcher in the Torres lab (Department of Host-Microbe Interactions) investigating prophages in Staphylococcus. Each bubble represents a project, a concept, or a technique I learned along the way, such as echo acoustic handler, LC-MS, fluorescence polarization (FP) assay, opsonophagocytic killing (OPK) assay, transduction, etc. Every detail has a meaningful connection to my experiences. It’s interesting because none of my family members work in STEM, yet through this artwork, they could understand and even remember the OPK killing assay that I perform in the lab!

5. Describe your perspective on the relationship between art and science and how competitions like this impact scientists. 

Art enables us to visualize our powerful imagination and communicate complex ideas to other people more easily, which is especially important in STEM fields. Even a poster or PowerPoint presentation in lab meeting is a form of art. As for the competition, this is a great opportunity for scientists to reflect on their work under a new light. In fact, it helped me see the interconnectedness of the different projects I’ve worked on. Furthermore, a platform like this allows me to see science as a creative endeavor, beyond numbers and data. I believe that fostering creativity can lead to innovative and meaningful discoveries. 

For questions about the Art of Science Competition, email SciCommArt@stjude.org.