Roberto Osti b. 1959, Bologna, Italy Lives and works in Bloomfield, New Jersey
I am a Medical Illustrator by trade and teach Anatomy-Figure Drawing at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. During the last decade or so I have become more active in the Fine Arts, and a commission for a specific illustration prompted me to explore the interaction between Art and Illustration. While preparing an illustration for an article in a special issue of Scientific American (September 1995), which detailed the theoretical reconstruction of a human limb through the cultivation of human tissue cells in a special “scaffolding,� I realized that a precise and detailed drawing has the power to make plausible and believable a process that is highly speculative and on the verge of science fiction. The article also describes how scientists can recreate a human ear by implanting chondrocytes (cartilage cells) in a special scaffolding that is then grafted onto the back of a lab rat where the ear will grow. Once fully formed, the ear is cut from the back of the rat and transplanted to the patient. I believe that this article, and my illustration, inspired the artist Stellarc in 2003 to implant such an ear onto his forearm. This discrepancy between the theory of the beautifully formed forearm depicted in my illustration and the reality of the ear implanted on the back of a rat had me pondering the fantastic fallacies of science. In response, I developed the series Myth Dissected. I asked myself: What if we could use the latest scientific and medical innovations to create the monsters and gods that so far have populated only our culture and myths? I think we could not resist the urge to dissect and study these creatures, so I prepared a few works, such as Deconstruction of a Werewolf and Shaman in Spring, to explore this irresistible temptation.
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Shaman in Spring, 2008