Paint Lab 2026

COMMON GROUND

Artist: Raman Uppal
@ramanvisuals

Common Ground highlights the power of scientists collaborating with local communities, and valuing their lived knowledge of place.

Inspired by Professor Wouter Buytaert’s work with rural Andean communities affected by water security issues, the artwork depicts the “Protectors of the Páramo” collecting soil data after fire. Together, local knowledge and scientific tools reveal how ecosystems change under pressures like deforestation or climate change.

How might science further empower communities to care for the environments they know best?

PARALLEL SYSTEMS

Artist: Ansley Randall
ansleyrandall.com

Parallel Systems explores the design of materials from basic molecular ingredients to engineer specific properties for precise medical roles.

Inspired by Dr Louis van der Elst and his functional fibres for medical use inside the body, the artwork reflects layered systems where these robotic fibres sense, assist and integrate. Geometric forms stretch, overlap and interlock, translating precision, movement and complexity.

How might such custom designed, smart materials reshape medical care and biological repair in the future?

DEGREES OF DÉJÀ VU

Artist: Qwynto
@qwynto

Degrees of Déjà vu contrasts Antarctica’s incomprehensible scale with precise scientific tools reading its history.

The work is inspired by Professor Tina van de Flierdt’s work retrieving a 200-metre long sediment core below half a kilometre of West Antarctic ice. This record offers clear evidence of ice melting in a world warmed by +2°C, and helps us predict future sea level rises.

What other applications might scientists find for mapping our physical world using just the passage of time?

FOLDING INTO CONTINUITY

Artist: Naomi Sermet
@naomi.sermet

Folding Into Continuity represents a moment of arrival, where technology meets unfamiliar environments.

Influenced by engineer Jayden Jackson’s origami-inspired heat shields, the work captures a spacecraft unfolding its protective structures as it encounters a resistant, unknown world. Hovering between ancient and future landscapes, there's tension between new ideas, and memories of older ways.

What other ancient techniques might inspire tomorrow’s engineering solutions?

Artist supported by the Lucy Halford Bursary.

THE BAIT

Artist: Adélaïde Aronio
@adelaide_aronio

The Bait explores how precise time measurement can map the hidden forces shaping the universe.

Inspired by Dr Charles Baynham’s ultra-cold, atomic clocks, it shows an isolated atom – stilled and suspended – acting as a lure within an unseen cosmic sea of dark matter. Passing disturbances alter its frequency, leaving traces in time itself. The atom becomes bait: a sensor waiting for the invisible to reveal itself.

What other applications are there for geospatial mapping using the passage of time?

ECHOES BENEATH THE SURFACE

Artist: Liam Bononi
@liambononi

Echoes Beneath the Surface explores the hidden impact of brain injury, showing how harm can occur beneath the surface, even when nothing appears broken.

Inspired by conversations with researcher Dr Lucas Low, whose work informs safer cycle helmet design, the mural reveals the particular danger of angled force impacts. These incidents impart a rotational stress that can significantly disrupt the brain’s delicate structures.

How might this understanding change how we care for our brains in everyday life?

INCURABLE

Artist: Adalberto Lonardi
@adalbertolonardi

Incurable looks at blood as something we all share yet rarely appreciate. Beneath its familiarity lies a constant, life-giving defence system.

The mural is inspired by haematology scientists Dr Kat Fordwor-Hepburn and Sophie Ball’s work on multiple myeloma. The artwork zooms into the blood of two individuals, showing how plasma cells in the bone marrow can protect one person but become damaged and harmful in another.

How often do we ask how healthy our blood really is?

STAINING SYMBIOSIS

Artist: Georgina Luck
@georgina.luck

Staining Symbiosis portrays the body as responsive, reactive, and constantly changing at the cellular level.

Inspired by conversations with Dr Benedikt Hölbling, the work draws on Cell Painting – a technique that stains different parts of a cell to reveal how they respond to disease or drugs. Flowing ink and watercolour use colour and space to echo subtle shifts that signal health or harm.

Could Cell Painting help create drug therapies tailored specifically to a patient’s unique set of cells?

CONVERGENCE: THE SPARK BETWEEN MIND AND MACHINE

Artist: Ayo’lamide
@adesola__ayoolamide

Convergence: The Spark between Mind and Machine considers AI’s understanding of our movements.

This piece is inspired by Dr Tolga Birdal’s real-time, body-pose estimation to support injury recovery or detect movement disorders like Parkinson’s. This reflects how humans and machines translate motion into meaningful patterns. The split figure embodies a charged alignment of intuition and calculation, curiosity and code.

What more might AI systems learn from our body language and movements?

REGENERATION

Artist: Doppel
@doppelwashere

Regeneration celebrates our self-repairing hearts. Plant life emerging from a human heart becomes a metaphor for renewal and resilience.

Inspired by  Dr Danika Hayman’s work developing a “heart in a dish” using slices of living human tissue, the piece reflects a growing understanding of how the heart recovers. By simulating injury and repair, Hayman’s approach is helping develop and test future treatments.

Why do we only appreciate the remarkable engineering within our chests when something goes wrong?