Burning Helix
June Wayne, Burning Helix Series
23 5/8 x 38 5/8 in. (60 x 98,1 cm)
Color lithograph printed by Serge Lozingot on Rives with Tamarind watermark.
Edition of 34, 1970.
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, 2006; Rubicon Gallery, January 1977; Muckenthaler Cultural Center, 1974; Van Doren Gallery, 1974; Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery, 1973; Gimpel and Weitzenhoffer, 1972; Phone Associates and Grunwald Foundation, 1970-1.
SELECTED COLLECTIONS
Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Brodsky Center, Grunwald Center.
COMMENTS
It was perhaps inevitable given June Wayne’s (1918-2011) interest in science, that she would explore DNA, its beauty and the ramifications of its unraveling.
The lithograph “Burning Helix” (August 1970) from the series of the same name is Wayne’s poetic take on the astonishing aesthetic, and abstraction of the amino acid sequence in the DNA chain.
Wayne depicted scientific discoveries in poetic rather than illustrative ways. “I began to realize rather early that the more scientifically grounded I was, the less aesthetic the result,” she said. “When it comes to the work itself, too close relationship to the facts works against the metaphysical and aesthetic potentials.”
