- Featured Artist
A nano and biotechnology scientist, Rita Blaik, PhD, is this issue’s featured artist. As a material science designer, Blaik’s photographs involves creative rethinking of accepted wisdom in nanoscience and quantum mechanics by “deconstructing iconographic images and enabling the transformation of materials to new states.” Her intriguing photographic work reveals her commitment to “bringing airiness into solid, dense or heavy objects, and creating solid bodies out of fluids and light,” Her intention is “to alter the viewer's perceptions of the state of materials and to question how our learned biases affect our ability to see all possible modalities.”
A scientist, artist, dancer and educator Blaik serves as Manager of Education at the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA, where she develops educational content centered around STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics), nanoscience, entrepreneurship, and professional development. She also teaches at ArtCenter College of Design, Pasadena, California.