In Vivo

"In vivo" is a biological term used to describe processes or experiments conducted within a living organism. Despite signifying organic life, these processes also reveal a paradoxical relationship between flesh and the technology that surrounds, probes and changes it. On one hand, technology enhances our understanding, enabling life-saving medical advancements. On the other hand, it disrupts natural states of life and, sometimes, at the expense of life itself.

Featuring recent oil paintings by emerging artist Sarah Elizabeth Barnett, this exhibition reflects on implications of developing biotechnologies through a surreal and emotionally charged lens. The works explore themes of life preservation, mortality, augmentation, and the uncanny blurring of the natural and artificial. Through intimate close-ups, viewers encounter highly rendered yet ambiguous forms, including plastic-wrapped humans and animals, gloved hands at work and looming from out of frame, fabricated medical devices, machines that mimic bodily organs, and disorienting perspectives of the body both inside and out. Vivid in detail, richly colored, heavily layered, and distorted, the works emerge from the artist’s conflicting feelings about the body and an uncertain future. The exhibition aims to ask questions, stir thoughts, unsettle slightly, and to hopefully resonate emotionally with the viewer.