Patricia Olynyk

Olynyk received an MFA with Distinction from the California College of the Arts. She was a Monbusho Scholar and Tokyu Foundation Research Scholar at Kyoto Seika University.

Olynyk's multi-sensory installations explore the "concept of "umwelt," as described in the semiotic theories of Jakob von Uexküll and interpreted by Thomas A. Sebeok (1976)... the world as it is experienced by a particular organism. As such, umwelt evokes more than environment; it emphasizes an organism's ability to sense — a condition for the existence of shared signs."[2] Her collaborations on third culture projects uncover the deeper meaning behind the history and evolution of science and technology; how people, culture and institutions shape the understanding of science, history and the natural world.[3][4][5]

Her cross-disciplinary work often includes microscopy and biomedical imaging,[6][7] and is described as "something uncanny... where one's consciousness can neither respond in a unified way to the bodily sensations or float free in imaginary space; it is caught in the in-between."[8] Influenced by the early work of the MIT Center for Advanced Visual Studies, and the art and visual perception theories of Rudolf Arnheim, Olynyk was one of the first artists in the US appointed to a university science unit,[9] is listed as one of the 66 Brilliant Women in Creative Technology,[10] and has programmed art, science and technology curriculum, symposiums and fellowships at research institutions.[11]

Solo exhibitions include, Sensing Terrains in 2006 at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C., and in 2007 at the Center for Biotechnology and Interdisciplinary Studies, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York;[12][13] in 2012, Dark Skies at the Art I Sci Center Gallery at UCLA;[14][15] in 2003, Transfigurations at Galeria Grafica Tokio, Japan;[16] and in 2020, The Mutable Archive, at Bruno David Gallery, St. Louis, Missouri.[17]

Olynyk was part of a three-person exhibition in 2019, Umwelt, which took "the concept of collaboration to new heights and complications."[18][1] at the Zooid Institute Collective, BioBAT Art Space, at the Brooklyn Army Terminal.[19] Group shows in New York also include, in 2016 with Ellen Levy, Skeptical Inquirers at the Sidney Mishkin Gallery;[20][21][22][23] in 2014, Sleuthing the Mind at the Pratt Manhattan Gallery,[24] and, in 2015, Ephemeral: Unraveling History at the Ruth S. Harley Gallery.[25]

Her work has been featured at Palazzo Michiel dalle Colonne for Venice Design 2018,[26] the Los Angeles International Biennial, The Brooklyn Museum,[27] the Saitama Modern Art Museum in Japan, Museo del Corso in Rome, and The Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada. She is represented by the Bruno David Gallery.[28]

In 2019 Olynyk was the US curator and a speaker at the CYFEST-12: ID, CYLAND International Media Art Festival, at the Saint Petersburg Stieglitz State Academy of Art and Design in Russia.[29][30]

Prior to joining Washington University in 2007 as Director of the Graduate School of Art[31] Olynyk was an Associate Professor at the University of Michigan's School of Art & Design, and director of the Penny W. Stamps Distinguished Visitors Program and the Roman J. Witt Visiting Faculty Program, supporting cross-disciplinary discourse and research. In 2005, she became the first non-scientist appointed to the University’s Life Sciences Institute.[32]

Former Chair of the Leonardo Education and Art Forum, a branch of Leonardo, the International Society for the Arts, Sciences and Technology,[33] Olynyk co-directs the Leonardo/ISAST New York LASER program with Ellen K. Levy, promoting cross-disciplinary exchange between artists, scientists, and scholars.[34]

Awards include a Helmut S. Stern Fellowship at the Institute for the Humanities, University of Michigan, and a Francis C. Wood Fellowship at the College of Physicians and Mütter Museum in Philadelphia. Olynyk's residencies include the UCLA’s Design Media Arts Department,[35] the Banff Center for the Arts in Canada, Villa Montalvo, California, the University of Applied Arts Vienna[36], and in Europe’s oldest asylum, the Narrenturm also in Vienna.[37]

• "The Art of Medicine: A New Medical Humanities Gateway Course" chapter, for Teaching Artistic Research, Conversations Across Cultures, De Gruyter Press, May 2020
• "Creature Comforts and the Ties that Bind", Public Journal 59: Interspecies Communication, York University, Summer 2019
• "Synthesizing Fields: Art, Complexism and the Space Beyond Now", for Technoetic Arts, Complexism: Art + Architecture + Biology + Computation, A New Axis in Critical Theory?, Intellect Press, Volume 14, Issue 1–2, 2016
• Art + the Brain: Stories + Structures catalogue for Art + the Brain: Stories and Structures Symposium, Co-Author and Co-Editor; essay: Phantom Bodies + Mutable Archives, Art I Sci Center, California Nanosystems Institute, UCLA, Los Angeles, California, Art I Sci Center, June 2016
• "Fantastic Voyage and Other Scales of Wonder", for The Routledge Handbook to Biology in Art and Architecture, Routledge Press, 2015
• "Evolving Third Culture Thinking in Art and Science", for Conversations Across Cultures: Perspectives in Art and Education, De Gruyter Press, 2015
• "Minding the Gap: Risk Capital and the Myth of Two Cultures", Editorial for Leonardo, Vol. 45, No. 1, MIT Press, 2012