“Organic Worlds: Symbiogenesis in Art” is a unique blend of art, biology and technology, where husband-and-wife duo Ken Rinaldo and Amy Youngs focus on their creative impact in the world of biology. Rinaldo and Youngs work independently and feature different sensory functions in their work — with Youngs taking on a more detailed outlook and Rinaldo’s having an element of movement — yet the couple finds their projects are always in dialogue with each other.
“I will ask him or talk to him about projects that I am working through, and challenges I am having, and he will do the same with me,” Youngs said. “It is our everyday conversation.”
Youngs introduction to the art world began with her work at an interactive science museum as an undergraduate, where she saw the relationship between art and science work to highlight curiosity.
“I really felt a kinship with a lot of the scientists that I was meeting there, and these exhibits that were both sharing art and science together [that were] interactive,” Youngs said. “Kind of a sense of being a body in the world, trying to understand other things through interaction and participation was very exciting to me.”
In the exhibition, one of Youngs’ works features a large holey screen with light penetrating through it, creating the look of dappled sunlight. “Flesh of Sun” is the byproduct of Youngs’ observation of plants during the pandemic. She used her phone to focus on the plant itself and detach from botanical labels and context. In a process that took five years to think through and replicate, Youngs sought an opportunity to replicate that experience for viewers, and found the concept of light to guide her.
“I wanted to get to know plants outdoors in their environment — there is something entrancing about looking at a plant and noticing the details,” Youngs said. “The light was something so important that I wanted to make that visible again without the images, just with the motion.”
Youngs also finds a passion in composting and the role of worms in an ecosystem. Right at the front of the gallery, an innocuous coffee table sits with a plant on it. The unassuming appearance hosts an intricate setup: gallery visitors are able to drop items such as a banana peel into the table, which goes straight into its hidden compost receptacles. The coffee cones underneath the table collect the compost, allowing worms and other life to thrive right beneath the visitors’ eyes.
“A coffee table is a big, broad, open space, but dark inside [and is] a hidden space for worms, which is where they love to live,” Youngs said. “It is an evolution of several other projects that ask a similar question: ‘How can we co-exist with the biological systems like compost in our homes?’”
Interaction with nature for Youngs is influenced by art, a skill she thinks each individual should possess because of the permissions it grants. Youngs said this concept gives way to evolution as well. Evolution allows life to explore new ways of being, while art allows humans more ways of understanding.
“Art gives me permission to do things that are not normally done, because it gives you a license,” Youngs said. “I encourage everybody, even if you don’t consider yourself a professional artist, to use [art] as a place of freedom. It’s our right to be able to operate differently than prescribed, traditional notions.”
Youngs finds her work to experience an evolution of sorts, too. Learning from composting creatures, living with them and having a productive relationship with them take many forms for her.
“Even though we have a show and we are showing a finished work, I always do think there is an opportunity for an evolution of a project to continue,” Youngs said.
Being an educator at Ohio State University, Youngs said this work is larger than the work of just artists or just scientists but rather should include everybody. Art is a form of knowledge, as is science. They work off each other. She finds ideas such as art being permissive can add another dimension to people’s lives.
“We can learn from each other’s fields, the blending of those things can be productive,” Youngs said. “Scientists, maybe even the engineers and people in veterinary medicine can all learn a little from each other’s fields and feel a little freer to respect all of these various fields of knowledge and understand we have a lot to learn from each other.”
Sharing her new ambitions, Youngs said she hopes to help benefit people outside of the art world through workshops that highlight being grounded and seeking wellness through nature.
The SP/N Gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday, with hours of 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays and 1 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Thursdays and Fridays. The “Organic Worlds” exhibition is running through April 29.
“There is actually a thing called the art of noticing, which doesn’t require that you make anything,” Youngs said. “There is a kind of witnessing, there is a meditation that anybody can do, where you are out in the world and you just pay attention and look. There is something very healthy about feeling yourself in the world, in the here and now.”
