Biomatrices

Biomatrices is a meditation on time and landscape. These two stone floor mosaics are placed at the major pedestrian intersections within the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s Laboratory and Radiation Services facility in Denver. Each pairs trefoil symbols of biotechnology with Arapaho iconography, forming an ideogram, designating the air, water, and human environments upon which all the activities of this facility flow.

As an artist, I am deeply interested in how shapes and colors are collected and patterned into a larger symbolic order, capable of transcending their original referents, and even cultures, to become powerful metaphors in the perception of human experience. By combining the radiation, biohazard, and infectious substances symbols with Arapaho symbols, I have produced a pair of designs encompassing the history of the landscape and the functioning of the laboratory. The radial symmetry of the organic and geometric shapes in each circle reflects similar structures found in chemical compounds and living cells.

The first mosaic references the air quality and blood testing performed at the facility through Arapaho symbols for the heart and lungs. The second floor design contains bilateral light and dark shapes offset by a pair of darkened horns of an Arapaho buffalo skull symbol. The cardinal directions are prominent in the outer ring of white marble, and the concentric rings symbolize a lake in Arapaho iconography, representing the water testing performed here.