The Esther M. Klein Art Gallery is pleased to present the 17th Art and Science Exhibition featuring prints by Charlotte Yudis. Yudis's polymer gravure etchings with chine collé underscore the many possible intersections between art and science - the type of interactions that the Klein Gallery at the University City Science Center has been dedicated to fostering since 1977.

Yudis's prints focus closely on elements from nature or the human body: the center of a passionflower, the cross section of white turnips, human blood cells. Each print is like a slide specimen seen magnified twenty-five times under the microscope, and it is often difficult to discern whether we are looking at human or plant cells. Yudis claims that, "All the forms/movements found in the human body appear in nature. The opposite is also true; all movements and forms that the universe holds in readiness meet in the body and are thus united at a higher level."

In many ways, Yudis's work recalls Carolus Linnaeus's classification of plants in their close study and observed details. And the merging of art and science in her work recalls the Enlightenment era when art and science were most obviously linked. Yet, unlike Linneaus, Yudis delights in the abstracted and surreal qualities that are discovered upon her magnification - human blood cells and tissues become mysterious spider webs or outer-space landscapes, turnip cells become smudged fingerprints. The abstracted beauty of these works is paramount, yet today one cannot help but to think of virulent strains such as the AIDS virus and bio-terrorism upon viewing these cellular specimens, especially the blood series.

Charlotte Yudis currently serves as art instructor at the Fleisher Art Memorial where she is also the faculty representative to the Board of Directors. She has also taught at Moore College of Art and Design, the University Museum at the University of Pennsylvania, and in the Division of Education at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Yudis has received critical acclaim for her work which has been exhibited extensively, both locally and nationally. Her prints are in the collections of The Newark Public Library, The New Jersey State Museum, Jersey City Museum, and The Montclair Museum, among many others. Yudis lives in Moorestown, New Jersey.


The Esther M. Klein Art Gallery is located at 3600 Market Street and is open to the public Monday through Saturday from 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Exhibits are free and wheelchair accessible.

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