Anna Dumitrius works are semi abstract paintings inspired by microscopic images of Vitamin C.
"Vitamin C Number 4" 30x40cms, mixed media on canvas, 2003
Artist's Statement
Vitamin 'C' is the most popularly used form of self treatment outside the medical community and is promised to have all sorts of curative benefits (such as preventing colds) but large quantities (500mg or more) have been shown in experiments (although there is a lot of disagreement about this) to actually damage DNA. It was the first vitamin to be used therapeutically, when it was given to British sailors in the 1750s in the form of limes (leading to us being called "Limeys" ) to prevent scurvy. But it is actually addictive, in that if someone takes it regularly as a supplement to their diet in reasonably large quantities and then stops, they can actually start to develop scurvy,even with a healthy diet, as their body has become reliant on the larger doses of the vitamin.
What I've tried to look at in the work is the nature of self treatment, alternative therapies etc and how little is actually known about these things, it's just the same as when you give yourself over to a doctor to treat you, you have very little understanding of what the treatment actually involves, but because in the case of vitamins you can actually buy them anywhere and there are so many health and beauty books extolling their virtues you don't realise it's the same thing really. What I've tried to capture in the work, which shows vitamin 'c' molecules, is their strangeness, how far removed they actually are from the pills we put in our bodies. So the work looks at our attitudes to health but it also asks why we 'lay people' don't question more about what we are buying, or for that matter what is being prescribed to us.
Around this idea I have produced a series of canvasses, watercolours and etchings.
"Vitamin C Number 3" 30x40cms, mixed media on canvas, 2003
Artist's Biography
After graduating with a Masters Degree in Fine Art from the University of Brighton in Sussex, England in 1996, Anna has gone on to exhibit throughout the UK and in many places abroad including France, Japan, Cuba, Slovenia and currently Florida in the USA at The University of Florida Contemporary Art Museum in their DNA exhibition. She has collaborated with a Geneticist and and a Neuropsychiatrist on various projects and has worked with The Wellcome Trust and Pfizer Research and Development. Two works are held in the collection of the Science Museum in London. Anna is currently working on several ideas including a reconsideration of the impact of the textile production during the industrial revolution in Britain upon the development of computer science, this project is funded by The Arts Council of England. Anna has also worked as a freelance art critic for Reuters and British art magazine AN.
