Gemma Anderson is a research fellow at the University of Exeter in the Department of Sociology, Philosophy and Anthropology and the Living Systems Institute, and a lecturer in drawing at Falmouth University.
Reads like a journey . . . . Drawing as a Way of Knowing in Art and Science presents a meaningful insight into the practice of drawing and how it can function as both an epistemology and scientific inquiry at the same time. As a document encouraging the continued interactions between the arts and sciences, it provides a valuable resource. . . . Highly recommend. --Interalia Magazine Gemma Anderson's Drawing as a Way of Knowing in Art and Science takes us on a guided tour of her collaborations with scientists and mathematicians. On the way, we see stunning and illuminating illustrations, we meet a panoply of artists, mathematicians, scientists, philosophers, art historians and more, and we witness the processes of discovery and insight that happens through drawing. --Barbara Tversky Drawing: Research, Theory, Practice The artist Gemma Anderson recognizes that the visual arts and natural sciences are both practices devoted to looking closer, looking longer, and looking deeper. They seek out those things that are not visible to our casual seeing or everyday believing-stretching our perceptions, and our representations, to new limits. In this way, the practice of drawing is a natural bridge to connect the epistemologies of the visual arts with that of sciences - Anderson's new book, Drawing as a Way of Knowing in Art and Science guides us through her journey through this rich terrain. Anderson's drawing and printmaking are guided by underlying principles, making her artworks at once well-studied and fantastical, detailed and open-ended. They function as documents of her creative engagement with biodiversity and mathematics, while also illustrating her philosophical views on how drawing can help us come to know. In terms of the ongoing art-science conversation, Anderson's contribution is advancing how an artistic approach that embraces analogy, typology, and intuition (into a method she calls Isomorphology ) can expand our thinking about how to both recognize and organize the natural world. --Andrew S. Yang SCIART Magazine