VU Grand Courtyard hosts the exhibition of scientific illustrations "Science Reborn in Art"

On the occasion of the 443rd birthday of Vilnius University (VU), the Great Courtyard hosts an exhibition of illustrations from the popular science magazine SPECTRUM – "Science Reborn in Art". It features artworks by 16 young Lithuanian artists, aesthetically expressing the beauty of scientific discoveries and bringing together scientists, artists, and the general public.

How to portray scientific ideas in an engaging, comprehensible, original, bold, yet accurate way – this was the task of the young artists who illustrated the articles of the popular science magazine SPECTRUM.

According to Jekaterina Budrytė, one of the SPECTRUM illustrators, an illustration of a scientific article is like a face or a garment of the text, it should arouse curiosity, intrigue, and offer a new way of seeing the text.

"When illustrating the magazine, I was aiming for simplicity, clarity, a more interesting insight, always wanting to escape clichés and convey my own interpretation", she says.

Reda Tomingas, who illustrated the latest issue of the magazine, believes that metaphor is one of the most important elements of successful scientific illustration. It is also very important that the drawing complements the text and makes it even easier for the reader to understand. She tried not to illustrate the themes literally, but to find a way of conveying the main idea, a relevant element of interpretation that would be in line with the essence of the article, but at the same time would be intriguing, and would evoke an "Aha" moment.

Good scientific illustrations are not easy to create. Jekaterina Budrytė says that the most difficult thing is to turn complex information into a comprehensible drawing, which is like a summary of a scientific article but expressed in one illustration rather than one sentence. If you manage to do this, success follows.

The artists who created the illustrations for SPECTRUM's publications are happy to have contributed to the education of society in the field of scientific topics.

Illustrations by: Andrius Banelis, Jekaterina Budrytė, Eglė Plytnikaitė, Ūla Šveikauskaitė, Tomas Tarvydas, Reda Tomingas, Adriana Valantiejūtė.

The exhibition will run from 31 April to 31 May 2022.