Michael Joo’s print depicts the artist installing a 3D-printed calcium carbonate sculpture onsite off the coast of Kona, Hawaii, as part of his involvement in making The REEF, an OG:CR physical sculpture with MEGA Lab, a nonprofit working on protecting the ocean through art and science. The print itself is a combination of UV printing, screenprinting, and hand-applied layers. Above a silkscreen base layer, which provides added depth, is a top layer of hand-applied silvering on digitally printed vellum. Details of calcium carbonate, the same material used to create his reef sculptures, is painted onto the print, accentuating the whites.

Images of Michael Joo and the PHA Print team during production by Xavier Petromelis

artist bio

Michael Joo (b. 1966, Ithaca, NY) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. Working at the intersections of art and science, Joo’s studio practice creates space for an abstract analysis into ideas inspired by the metaphysical and thinking sciences. He earned his BFA from Washington University, St Louis, MO, and his MFA from the Yale School of Art, New Haven, CT. Engaging with a variety of arts media ranging from painting, photography, printmaking, and sculpture, Joo explores ideas related to symbols and abstraction, the past and present, and the human and natural. His multifaceted art practice highlights the union of art and science, two disciplines that cannot be fully divorced from each other. Joo’s works are held in numerous public collections around the world, including the Brooklyn Museum, the Denver Art Museum, Frances Young Tang Teaching Museum and Art Gallery, Guggenheim Museum, Harvard Art Museums, Savannah College of Art and Design, the Israel Museum, Moderna Museet Stockholm, UCLA Hammer Museum, Walker Art Center.