A new photographic exhibition will show realistic images of mutant insects recovered from Sellafield and other nuclear reprocessing sites, writes Dick Ahlstrom.
Does nuclear power provide an answer to global warming and rising fuel prices? An art exhibition that opens this evening in Carlow may convince some that nuclear is not the way to go.
"Heteroptera: images of a mutating world" is the title selected for the exhibition by Swiss artist Cornelia Hesse-Honegger.
A well-respected and trained zoological illustrator of 25 years, she travelled to nuclear sites around the world, including Sellafield in Cumbria, looking for insect mutants.
Alarmingly, she found them quite easily including at Sellafield, Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania and in the Ukraine.
She knew what to look for because she also worked in the lab, producing illustrations of laboratory-induced insect mutations, explains Sinead Dowling, Carlow Visual Arts Co-ordinator with Carlow County Council.
The display includes 10 original watercolour illustrations of mutated insects and opens at 6.30pm in the exhibition room at Carlow Library.
"I think what is particularly striking about her work is the context it is coming from," says Dowling.
The watercolour paintings are photorealistic and akin to the fabulous illustrations produced before photography by the Victorian natural historians, explains the artist and curator who helped bring Hesse-Honegger's work to Carlow, Catherine Fitzgerald.
"Her work has the ability to touch the general public but also the scientist," Fitzgerald says, and provides a powerful link between art and science.
"We are very happy to have Cornelia come."
Cornelia specialises in searching for and illustrating flora and fauna exposed to low-level radiation near nuclear sites.
Her work combines both an artistic practice and ongoing scientific investigations, says Fitzgerald, herself a trained scientist from New Zealand who now lives and works in Carlow.
The images have a startling effect, she believes.
"You are overwhelmed by the beauty of it," she says, but then the reality of the images, mutated insects, comes home to startle.
Fitzgerald was invited to act as curator for this the latest in a series of art exhibitions entitled Visualise Carlow, says Dowling.
They are taking place in the run up to the opening in 2007 of Visual-The National Centre for Contemporary Art and Performing Arts Theatre. The €11.6 million project is being developed on the grounds of Carlow College.
Cornelia's visit to Ireland and the exhibition are supported by Visualise Carlow and by the Swiss Embassy in Dublin and the Swiss Arts Council.
She will provide a talk on the opening night explaining her work and she will also lead a two-day workshop on the drawing an painting skills required to accurately record the natural environment.
• The exhibition at Carlow's library is free and open to the public during normal library hours and runs from today until August 27th. The opening night talk is also open to the public. Contact Dowling at visual@carlowcoco.ie