Helena Kauppila

Study for Carbon Assimilation

What makes a tree a tree? Study for Carbon Assimilation grew out of my early explorations of LUCA, the Last Universal Common Ancestor. Studying genes drew my attention to the multitude of functions taking place within living cells, and made me wonder how much—and how little—any one function can tell us about a living being. The painting incorporates a carbon-assimilation gene associated with LUCA, while its colors come from a very different encounter: a tree with deep purple flowers growing near my studio in Weissensee, which flowered particularly strongly that year. The genetic sequence points toward one process within life, but a tree is, of course, much more.

This was the first painting in which I replaced the letters A, T, G, and C with four orientations of a triangle within a square. This simple visual encoding became an important structure in later paintings and also made possible the ceramic work LUCA during my artist residency in Istanbul later that year.

Interested in "Study for Carbon Assimilation"? Inquire below.

Getting it home

Pick up the painting from Zeitgeist at the end of the exhibition, or have it shipped to you. I’m happy to provide a shipping quote.