For Cindy Stelmackowich, her artwork finds beauty in things that many people find morbid, like illustrations of cadavers and epidemic diseases like cholera.
She said her most recent exhibition, In Mourning Of, combines science and art to explore themes of death, disease and mourning in the nineteenth century.
“It’s sort of like this tragic beauty that I like about it,” she said, sitting in the lobby of the Patrick Mikhail Gallery, where her works are currently on display.
“People are both attracted to it, but at the same time . . . it’s having to confront that issue of death.”
Stelmackowich said people find her work abnormal not only because of the aesthetic depiction of death, but also from the combination of science and art, which has always been natural for her.
During her undergrad at Carleton University, she studied cell anatomy and painting, later obtaining her master’s degree in art history. Stelmackowich now works as an instructor at Carleton, having formerly taught “Envisioning the Human Body: Between Art and Science” that she said attracts students studying science and art history.
She said her research on the visual culture of science and medicine led her to create the pieces in this exhibition.
The Mourning series includes five 102 by 127 centimetre prints from 19th-century anatomy textbooks.
These illustrations were done when dissection had just become legalized and they needed to train students.
The “Cholera Shapes and Spaces” series includes prints of hand-drawn images from medical reports on the 1854 cholera epidemic. She said these reports were some of the first to use microscopes to examine air and water.
Stelmackowich said that because the images from both series were done at times when new scientific technology developed but photography was still not at par, the images reflected the artistic style of the Victorian era.
Patrick Mikhail, owner of the gallery, said Stelmackowich’s work depicts the era but confronts many of the same issues faced today, comparing the 1854 cholera outbreak to the current outbreak in Haiti.
“I find that here we are [over] 150 years later and really, if you think of it, we are in a new age of reason where science and technology are reshaping our lives,” he said.
Stelmackowich said there is less of a focus on death now because people feel like they can live forever.
“Everything is hardwired now to believe you can live so long and there have been great advances in the medical profession so . . . the antithesis of that is to acknowledge one’s death,” she said.
“You are gonna die,” she laughed.
Stelmackowich will be giving an artist talk Nov. 28 about the exhibition and bringing in some of the raw materials and images from her research and travels.
The exhibition runs until Dec. 13.