ARTIST: Alina Nuebel

I find inspiration in developing visual recipes that unravel the phenomena of pattern recognition to create images that examine the liminal space between illustration and abstraction.

Under the Microscope, a droplet of water is transformed into a strange world, where the cells of algae look like stained glass satellites, and what seemed dull is revealed to be vibrant
 In this exhibit, the small is made large, the invisible made seen, the mundane made magnificent, the real made abstract.

These depictions are of real species -- all too small to be seen with the naked eye, and all of them found within the Russian River watershed. Though we share a common ancestor with these beings, it requires a degree of self-sublimation to appreciate our kinship with these organisms. Through time, natural selection, and a not-insignificant amount of luck, our respective lineages have become so different from one another that we can no longer directly perceive one another, while affecting one another profoundly.

It is a very human, that to see them - an interaction mediated by more than 300 years of science and technological development in microscope - is to find a new way to relate to them.

Alina Nuebel is a multi-disciplinary artist based in Northern California, whose work bridges the realms of biology and painting. Their practice blends observation and abstraction, capturing the small, mundane, or often unseen aspects of the natural world in a way that encourages viewers to look more closely and challenge our human-centered understanding of the world around us. Ranging from meticulously detailed to gesturally abstract, their artwork highlights the sublime beauty found in even the tiniest facets of nature.