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Physics finds artistic expression in the works of Julian Voss-Andreae
photo by Joni Kabana
For quantum physician-turned-artist Julian Voss-Andreae, Quantum Man is but one of many creations that combines the unlikely bedfellows of physics and art. “This strong dependence on the point of view is intriguing in this context, because it reflects a central aspect of quantum physics," says Voss-Andreae. "‘Reality’ is not something that is out there, independent of us, and ultimately can't be separated from its observer.
A Portlander the past nine years, Voss-Andreae, 39, grew up in Hamburg, Germany. His home was a nurturing environment for the arts—his mother, a violinist and his father a patron of film, music and painting. Voss-Andreae’s plans were to enter the Art Academy in Berlin and do what came natural for a young man raised to appreciate the arts. After his civil service duty, though, something went incalculably wrong for the young artist. He followed his poet friend to the Free University in Berlin and began taking courses in philosophy and physics. This would not sit well at home.
“It is funny, but when I informed my parents that I wanted to drop painting and go into physics instead, they were really disappointed and tried to talk me out of it,” Voss-Andreae says. “I am guessing that this is a pretty atypical reaction for parents.”
Voss-Andreae launched a personal quest to explain “a lot of really weird and incomprehensible things about relativity and quantum physics.” This pursuit defined his next eight academic years, including graduate research in quantum physics in Vienna, Austria.
The 12-foot-diameter "Angel of the West" is a human antibody sculpture modeled after Leonardo da Vinci's "Vitruvian Man." This piece is displayed at The Scripps Research Institute in Jupiter, Florida.
But just as his need to explain the ineffable drove him into physics, the lack of expression for these mysteries ultimately led him back to art. “What frustrates me about the rationalistic paradigm most physicists live in is its incompatibility with the kind of proto-verbal, unspeakable questions and topics I am ultimately interested in,” he says. “It is about potential, possibilities, tendencies, but not nearly as vague as this sounds now. Art is really the only way for me to give those impossible-to-explain things a space.”
Now, working again in a medium that returns him to his parents’ good graces, Voss-Andreae has become a prolific creator of public art.
In Voss-Andreae’s Portland studio, the two fields—science and art—are closer relatives than they first appear. “The overlap is that both artists and scientists are ultimately driven by a sense of awe when beholding nature. In both fields, there is a strong sense of something miraculous of which you are trying to grasp small facets.”
An 8-foot Quantum Man was on display at Clackamas Community College in Oregon City, before walking into a private collection on Bainbridge Island. In October, Voss-Andreae unveiled a 10-and-a-half-foot-tall incarnation of Quantum Man at The Bravern building, a mixed-use project in Bellevue, Washington. Long strands of human antibodies take on the appearance of Leonardo da Vinci's "Vitruvian Man" and become the “Angel of the West,” a 12-foot-diameter piece in front of The Scripps Research Institute in Jupiter, Florida.
Roderick MacKinnon, a Nobel Prize winning scientist at Rockefeller University in New York City, commissioned Voss-Andreae in 2006 to create a piece based on his research into the structure of an ion channel. “When working on a piece, I tend to get deeper into the specialized literature,” Voss-Andreae notes. “And it is this knowledge of details that then provides the basis for me to receive inspirations that make artistic sense.”
The Quantum Man does his disappearing act from Clackamas Community College. A larger version of this sculpture is now playing the same tricks on minds and matter in Bellevue, Washington. RIGHT: Voss-Andreae holds one of his "Spin Family" members, which represents the spin path of a fundamental type of matter.
