Description

"Cell City" reimagines the city as a living body, inspired by a lab technique that makes cells glow under a microscope. The bright city lights become cells, highways turn into veins, and a sleeping figure emerges from the cityscape—hidden in plain sight.

"Cell City" is inspired by immunofluorescence imaging, a lab technique that reveals microscopic structures through glowing signals. On one summer night in Tokyo, 750 feet above the ground, I saw the city in a new light—the neon glow mirrored the fluorescent cells I observed daily under a microscope, and traffic flowed like red blood cells through vessels. Before my eyes, the city became a living organism. This painting brings that same experience to the audience: what first appears as a vibrant urban landscape slowly reveals a hidden figure—a sleeping woman sprawls across the city, with vessels made out of highways and a skeleton of building lights.