WASHINGTON, D.C.- The National Academies of Science opened the exhibit Hidden Codes: Paintings by Dennis Ashbaugh through May 10, 2007. Dennis Ashbaugh states that "biotechnology has reshuffled our concept of time by opening frightening new doors. It's altered what we eat. It's altered the face and future of our planet." Ashbaugh has explored DNA imagery in his work since 1987. His large, vibrant paintings or “gene portraits” fuse and explore the traditions of abstract art with cutting-edge scientific technology.

Ashbaugh has explored numerous concepts and artistic techniques within this evolving body of work. His series of “rust” paintings, whose structure continues to be inspired by genetic code, contain charred areas suggestive of both cosmic black holes as well as of the decay of the industrial “rust belt” destroyed by the outsourcing of American factory work. The exhibition concludes with the colorful series of “camouflage” paintings based on ways that nature finds to conceal living creatures, such as tropical fish that change in relation to their environment, so that, in the artist’s words, they are “hiding in plain sight.”

Ashbaugh is a Guggenheim Fellowship recipient, and his work has been featured in solo exhibitions in New York City at the Whitney Museum of American Art and P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center. His work is included in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. He collaborated with William Gibson on the critically acclaimed electronic poem, Agrippa (A Book of the Dead) (1992).

Art historian Barbara Rose will lecture about “Hidden Codes” on Sunday, Nov. 12, from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. at the National Academy of Sciences. Her lecture will be followed by a reception with Dennis Ashbaugh from 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m., and a concert by violinist Tai Murray beginning at 3 p.m.

An exhibition brochure with an essay by Barbara Rose is available upon request. Rose is an art historian and critic known primarily for her writings on 20th-century American art. She is the author of American Art Since 1900 (1967), along with more than 20 monographs on artists including Joan Miro, Claes Oldenburg, and Robert Rauschenberg. Her new book Monochromes (2006) is being published by the University of California Press, Berkeley. Rose is curator of the comprehensive Ashbaugh exhibition that begins its tour next year at the prestigious Institute Valenciano de Arte Moderno, Valencia, Spain, directed by Consuelo Ciscar.