LIA HALLORAN

Lunar Crater, after Caroline Herschel (1 of 3)
Globular Cluster, after Cecilia Payne (2 of 3)
Cyanotypes from hand-painted negatives
41.5” x 27”
2016 and 2017

Lia Halloran’s two artworks, from the series Your Body is a Space that Sees, uses artmaking to rectify the ways women have been marginalized in the history of science. The inspiration for this series is the “Harvard Computers” - a group of women scientists who worked at the Harvard Observatory beginning in the late 1800's. The under-recognized group made significant impacts in the field of astronomy, using photographic glass plates to establish classification systems for the size, brightness, and chemical content of stars.

In a conceptual move, Halloran chooses an artistic media that mirrors the scientists’ work. Cyanotype is a light-sensitive, chemical process that involves painting an emulsion onto artist paper, then exposing the emulsion to light. Halloran hand-painted the ethereal images onto mylar films, then used them as “negatives" to expose the light-sensitive paper. The luminescent images - rendered with the unmistakable blue of the cyanotype process - refer simultaneously to the galactic, the terrestrial, and the molecular. In addition to updating the historical record, Halloran also opens questions of the beautiful and contemplative aspects of scientific inquiry.