Page 20 - Child Art Magazine Transformative Experiences

2003WCF

Viviana Astudillo-Clavijo

Art to Biology

Art and nature have been two of my great loves since I was a child. I have made art for
as long as I can remember and I continue to be an active member of the Toronto arts
community by participating in group art shows and painting murals. My early love of
nature also drove me to seek a Ph.D. at the University of Toronto and Royal Ontario
Museum where I am studying the evolutionary history of South American riverine fishes.
My ambition is to merge my natural history research and art in a way that allows me to
effectively communicate the wonder of nature and the importance of preserving it through
biological illustrations, paintings, and murals.

My mother encouraged me to make art and become involved in local and international
art events from a very young age (I was 9 when I attended my first international art
event—the ICAF festival) and was heavily involved in helping me find and pursue these
opportunities. On the other hand, my father would take us on hikes and to explore nature,
and his own bewilderment and curiosity was contagious. As I grew older, my parents
were just as supportive of my bringing home dead animals to study and draw and of me
going to the jungle to further my exploration.

Together, art and science taught me how to be more observant and curious. Early on in
my studies my art and science took the form of reproduction. I painted from pictures and
repeated what I was told in lecture. Now, as a graduate student, I exercise my imagination
much more: I create my own scenes that depict an idea or feeling when I paint, and in my
research I design approaches to expand our knowledge of the natural world.

A big challenge that I have faced up to this point is being a girl in two male-dominated
fields. One day I was doing a group mural when an interviewer asked me, “How does
it feel to be one of the only girls here today?” I actually had not noticed until it was
pointed out to me, but I have not been able to “not notice” it again. When I started my
Ph.D. I realized that, again, I was one of a few women fish biologists, especially among
those who do research in the jungles of the tropics. Though I have not been outwardly
discriminated against for being a women by my male peers, the long history of men in
both art and science have resulted in some challenges that are unique to women in these
fields with regards to career development, personal awareness, and self-esteem.

The ICAF gave me my first introduction to being a member of the International
community. It gave me the opportunity to meet people from all over the world that
shared my love of art, and in doing so, taught me at a very young age that creativity
has no bounds and that ideas only get better when we share them with people with
different world experiences. Today I continue to take an international approach to my
art and research by seeking inspiration from the human and natural world at large and by
collaborating with educators and researchers at institutions in other countries.

As winner from Canada of ICAF’s very first art program, Viviana represented her country
at the ICAF’s very first festival. She then joined the ICAF Youth Board and was an emcee
at two other World Children’s Festivals. Now 26 years old, she is completing her Ph.D. in
evolutionary biology of tropical freshwater fishes at the University of Toronto.

18 ChildArt January -March 2017